'''Maclean's''' is
Canada's leading weekly
news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.
History
The magazine was founded in 1905 by
Toronto journalist/
entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean. The 43-year-old trade magazine publisher purchased an advertising agency's in-house business journal — along with its 5,000-strong subscription base. The ''Business Magazine'', was launched in October of that year as a pocket-sized digest of articles gathered from Canadian,
British and
U.S. periodicals. It sold 6,000 copies. Inside its bright blue cover, the fledgling monthly anointed itself, "the Cream of the World's magazines reproduced for Busy People". Its aim, Maclean wrote a year later, was not "merely to entertain but also to inspire its readers." It was renamed ''The Busy Man's Magazine'' in December 1905, and began soliciting original manuscripts on varied topics such as immigration, national defence, woman's suffrage and home life as well as fiction. Maclean renamed the magazine after himself in 1911, dropping the previous title as too evocative of a business magazine for what had become a general interest publication.
Maclean hired
Thomas B. Costain as editor in 1917. Costain invigorated the magazine's coverage of the
First World War, running first-person accounts of life on the
Western Front and critiques of Canada's war effort that came into conflict with wartime censorship regulations. Constain was ordered to remove an article by Maclean himself as it was too critical of war policy.
Costain encouraged literary pieces and artistic expressions and ran fiction by
Robert Service,
Lucy Maud Montgomery and
O. Henry, commentary by
Stephen Leacock and illustrations by
C. W. Jefferys,
F.S. Coburn and several
Group of Seven members, including
A. J. Casson,
Arthur Lismer and
J. E. H. MacDonald.
[1].
In 1919, the magazine moved from monthly to
fortnightly publication and ran a notable expose of the
drug trade by
Emily Murphy. Costain left the magazine to become a novelist and was replaced by
J. Vernon Mackenzie who remained at the helm until 1926. During his tenure, ''Maclean's'' achieved national stature.
H. Napier Moore became the new editor. An Englishman, he saw the magazine as an expression of Canada's role in the
British Empire. Moore ultimately became a figurehead with the day to day running of the magazine falling to managing editor
W. Arthur Irwin, a Canadian nationalist, who transformed saw the magazine as an exercise in nation-building, giving it a mandate to promote national pride. Under Irwin's influence, the magazine's covers promoted Canadian scenery and imagery - the magazine also sponsored an annual short story contest on Canadian themes and acquired a sports department. Irwin was also responsible for orienting the magazine towards both small and big "l"
Liberalism.
During the
Second World War, ''Maclean's'' ran an overseas edition for Canadian troops serving abroad. By the time of its final run in 1946, the "bantam" edition had a circulation of 800,000. ''Maclean's'' war coverage featured war photography by
Yousef Karsh, later an internationally acclaimed portrait photographer, and articles by war correspondents John Clare and Leonard Shapiro.
Irwin officially replaced Moore as editor in 1945, and reoriented the magazine by building it around news features written by a new stable of writers that included
Pierre Berton,
W.O. Mitchell,
Scott Young,
Ralph Allen and
Blair Fraser.
Allen became editor upon Irwin's acceptance of a diplomatic posting in 1950. This era of the magazine was noted for its articles on the Canadian landscape and profiles of town and city life. The feature article "Canada's North" by
Pierre Berton promoted a new national interest in the Arctic. Prominent writers during this period included
Robert Fulford,
Peter Gzowski,
Peter C. Newman,
Trent Frayne,
June Callwood,
McKenzie Porter and
Christina McCall. Exposes in the 1950s challenged the criminal justice system, explored LSD and artificial insemination.
''Maclean's'' published a memorable editorial the day after the
1957 federal election announcing the predictable re-election of the
St. Laurent Liberal Party. Written before the election results were known, Allen failed to anticipate the upset election of
John Diefenbaker's
Progressive Conservative Party.
The magazine struggled to compete with television in the 1960s by increasing its international coverage and attempting to keep up with the
sexual revolution through a succession of editors including Gzowski and
Charles Templeton. Templeton quit after a short time at the helm due to his frustration with interference by the publishing company, Maclean-Hunter.
In 1961, ''Maclean's'' began publishing a French-language edition, ''Le Magazine Maclean'', which survived until 1976, when the edition was absorbed by
L'actualité.
Peter C. Newman became editor in 1971, and attempted to revive the magazine by publishing feature articles by writers such as
Barbara Frum and
Michael Enright, and poetry by
Irving Layton.
Walter Stewart, correspondent and eventually
managing editor during this period, often clashed with Newman.
Under Newman, the magazine switched from being a monthly general interest publication to a bi-weekly news magazine in 1975, and to a weekly newsmagazine three years later. The magazine opened news bureaus across the country and in
London, England and
Washington D.C..
Current
Today ''Maclean's'' remains one of Canada's leading sources of news and information. ''Maclean's'' is also famous for its annual ranking of Canadian universities for the "undergraduate experience", which compares universities in three peer groupings. ''Maclean's'' has also been noted for its annual announcement of Canada's Top 100 Employers.
In 2001,
Anthony Wilson-Smith became the fifteenth editor in the magazine's history. He left the post at the end of February 2005 and was replaced by
Kenneth Whyte, who also serves as the magazine's publisher. The magazine has been owned by the
Rogers Communications conglomerate since Rogers acquired
Maclean-Hunter, the former publisher, in 1994.
Noted ''Maclean's'' contributors during its incarnation as a newsweekly include columnists
Barbara Amiel,
Allan Fotheringham,
Diane Francis and
Paul Wells as well as Newman.
Criticism
Whyte, a former editor at the ''
National Post'', is seen to have taken the magazine in a more conservative direction. He has hired a number of former ''Post'' writers and has brought back former ''Maclean's'' columnist
Barbara Amiel, wife of Conrad Black, as well as noted liberal academic Andrew Potter. Recently,
Steve Maich wrote a story in the July 25, 2005 issue praising
Wal-Mart, in which he argued that Wal-Mart benefits the community, with the cover showing a halo over a Wal-Mart store. The magazine has also published a sympathetic portrait of New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton and criticisms of Canadian environmental policy. It has created waves with investigative reports on Canada's powerful Thomson family and the apparent mistreatment of snipers in the Canadian military.
After his appointment as editor/publisher of Maclean's, Whyte fired several senior editors and recruited a large number of editorial staff from the National Post. These changes influenced the tone and focus of the Maclean's, which since the 1960s had been a left-liberal newsmagazine with a penchant for Anglo-Canadian nationalism and implicit anti-Americanism. The magazine also had been suffering from steadily eroding circulation and readership levels, largely due to a format and tone long considered tired and out-of-touch with consumer tastes. Whyte has won praise for reinvigorating the magazine, though critics have observed that he has transformed Maclean's into an editorial product with the same kind of conservative voice as the National Post.
Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities
Main articles: College_and_university_rankings#Canada
The 'Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities' is published annually in March. It is also known as 'Maclean's University Guide'. It includes information from the 'Maclean's University Rankings', an issue that is published annually in November, primarily for students in their last year of high school and entering their first year in Canadian universities. Both the Guide and the Rankings Issue feature articles discussing
Canadian universities and ranking them by order of quality. The rankings focus on taking a measure of the "undergraduate experience", comparing universities in three peer groupings: Primarily Undergraduate, Comprehensive, and Medical Doctoral.
Schools in the Primarily Undergraduate category are largely focused on undergraduate education, with relatively few graduate programs. Comprehensives have a significant amount of research activity and a wide range of graduate and undergraduate programs, including professional degrees. Medical Doctoral institutions have a broad range of PhD programs and research, as well as medical schools.
In early 2006, ''Maclean's'' announced that in June 2006, it would be introducing a new annual issue called the University Student Issue. The issue would feature the results of a survey of recent university graduates from each Canadian university. However, some universities, such as the
University of Calgary,
McMaster University and the
University of Toronto, refused to take part in this exercise.
[4] In response, ''Maclean's'' sought the results of two university-commissioned student surveys: the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium and the National Survey of Student Engagement.
[5] Results from these surveys, along with ''Maclean's'' own graduate survey, were published in the
June 26,
2006, edition of ''Maclean's''. In 2007, ''Maclean's'' is publishing its second University Student issue, on March 22, 2007. The issue once again contains content from the NSSE and CUSC student surveys.
For the November 2006 University Rankings issue, 22 Canadian universities refused to provide information directly to ''Maclean's''. To rank those universities, the magazine relied on data it collects itself, as well as data drawn from third party sources such as Statistics Canada. Among the universities that refused to provide information directly to ''Maclean's'' in the fall of 2006 were the
University of British Columbia, the
University of Toronto,
Dalhousie University,
McMaster University, the
University of New Brunswick, the
University of Manitoba, the
Université du Québec network,
Simon Fraser University, the
University of Calgary, the
University of Lethbridge,
Ryerson University, the
Université de Montréal, the
University of Ottawa,
York University,
Concordia University, the
University of Western Ontario,
Queen's University,
Carleton University, the
University of Windsor and the
University of Alberta, as a means of voicing their displeasure with the methodology used to determine the ''Maclean's'' ranking.
[6][7] Indira Samarasekera, president of The
University of Alberta, further discussed this in the article "Rising Up Against Rankings" (published in the
02 April,
2007 issue of ''
Inside Higher Ed).''
[8]
The University Rankings Issue contains a compilation of different charts and lists judging the different aspects of universities in different categories. The three main areas listed in chart form in the University Rankings Issue as of
November 3,
2006 are the overall rankings themselves (a ranking of 47 universities in three categories -- medical doctoral, comprehensive and primarily undergraduate), the university student surveys, and the National Reputational Rankings.
The National Reputational Rankings, like the main university rankings, are broken into three subcategories: medical doctoral, comprehensive and primarily undergraduate based on the opinions on the quality of universities. The opinions gathered were contributed by secondary school principals, guidance counselors, organization and company heads and recruiters. The results of the reputational rankings are included in the main university rankings, and account for 16% of a university's total ranking "score."
Canada's Top 100 Employers
''Maclean's'' is also well-known for announcing the annual list of
Canada's Top 100 Employers, which is featured in a special issue each October.
[9] First published by ''Maclean's'' in 2002, this issue profiles the winners of an annual competition to determine Canada's best places to work. The competition is open to employers of all sizes, both private and public-sector. Winners are selected using a variety of criteria, which range from forward-thinking
human resources policies to progressive community involvement projects that make use of employees' talents.
[10] Detailed reasons for each employer's selection are published in an annual paperback by an outside firm, which manages the Canada's Top 100 Employers competition and provides the research to ''Maclean's''.
[11] A distinguished panel of academic advisors, drawn from universities across Canada, oversees the selection criteria for the annual competition.
[12]
See also
★
Media in Canada
References
1. The New Maclean’s magazine
2. Read about our History
3. Canada Post honours a Canadian publishing icon
4. Universities opt out of Maclean's graduate survey
5. How we got these survey results
6. 11 universities bail out of ''Maclean's'' survey
7. Letter to Maclean's from university presidents
8. Rising Up Against Rankings
9. Maclean's, October 13, 2006 issue
10. Selection criteria for Canada's Top 100 Employers
11. About the Canada's Top 100 Employers competition
12. Academic Advisory Board members
Source
★
''Macleans:'' the First 100 Years
External links
★
''Maclean's'' website
★
Macleans.ca: Universities
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