I recently went to Ottawa for a conference, and managed to hit a couple of newsstands while I was there. I came home with a carry-on bag heavy with magazines new to me, thrilled to find something distinctive and different to read. Most of the magazines on the newsstand were familiar, but I noticed something on the covers of many of those that weren’t:
As someone who’s fascinated by magazines as both expressions of and influences upon culture, I wanted to learn more about this insignia. I was intrigued that they were specifically said to be Canadian – and Genuine at that! This required investigation. What I learned made me reconsider the relationships among government, magazines, and innovation.
It turns out that the insignia is used by many of the Canadian magazines that receive funding from the Canada Periodical Fund’s CA$75 million Aid to Publishers program. This government program supports “Canadian print magazines, non-daily newspapers and digital periodicals to enable them to overcome market disadvantages and continue to provide Canadian readers with the content they choose to read” (source). The Fund is administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage. You can see a display of covers of some of the funded magazines (hit reload for another random array).
There is also a separate Business Innovation funding program for small and medium-sized publishers, and a Collective Initiatives program for industry-wide research and planning. Magazines Canada, the Canadian equivalent of MPA in the U.S., promotes the Genuine Canadian Magazine campaign to its members as well.
I knew that Canada has regulations that aim to ensure the expression of a distinctive Canadian identity within the nation’s media, but I didn’t know that magazines were included; I’d heard only about the broadcasting rules in the past.
Though the magazine subsidy programs have met some controversy, it’s fascinating to see which magazines are funded (even some from huge corporations, e.g., Rogers, which publishes newsmagazine Maclean’s), and how arts/literary and ethnic magazines have been affected.
These programs are also an acknowledgement that magazines play an important cultural role, even as print is fading. I find people often to be dismissive of this medium (“You study what?!”), but magazines are still significant in building our understanding of social and political reality, particularly within our specific places — which is why Canada values its genuine Canadian magazines and media.
I’d also like to imagine what independent American magazines could be and do with subsidies for innovative projects. I personally wouldn’t want to see funds allocated to major corporate publishers, but wouldn’t it be an interesting development in the U.S. to see indie magazine publishers able to access such funding?
I’m venturing into the debate over government subsidies of journalism here, but I think they are an increasingly real prospect; after all, as magazines increasingly become digital products, postal subsidies (which have already diminished) are less relevant. We should find other ways government might support quality magazines in the digital age. What could small magazine publishers achieve with even a small grant to support innovation? Perhaps they could lead the way with creative, open approaches to digital publishing, instead of having to ride the coattails of major publishers, for whom profit will be the prime consideration, into the digital age. This might be one way to ensure we have magazines with genuinely distinctive identities and financially sustainable operations, well into the digital future.
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