The Walrus
From Metapedia
The Walrus is a left wing Canadian general interest magazine launched in September 2003. Their Mandate is to "be a Canadian general-interest magazine with an international outlook. We are committed to publishing the best work by the best writers from Canada and elsewhere on a wide range of topics for readers who are curious about the world."
[edit] Founding
In 2002, David Berlin, a former editor and owner of The Literary Review of Canada began promoting his vision of a world-class Canadian magazine. A friend put him in touch with Ken Alexander, a former high-school teacher of English and History, and a television producer. He too had been trumpeting the need for a Canadian equivalent of Harper's, but had received little encouragement in his efforts. Some support was forthcoming from then Harper's editor Lewis Lapham in New York. For a time, there was even talk of producing a Canadian magazine with a substantial insert of Harper's material.
Finances for the venture eventually came from two sources: the Chawkers Foundation, run by Ken Alexander's family, and the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation. Each donated $2.5 million over five years.
In order to achieve high quality content, The Walrus paid its writers $2.50 CAD a word, a rate the best American periodicals routinely offered, but one that was extremely rare for most domestic journalists. Indeed, one of its articles was rumoured to have cost $25,000 dollars. The first issue of The Walrus included contributions from Margaret Atwood, Václav Havel, Douglas Coupland, Lewis Lapham, Curtis Gillespie and Stephen Lewis. Some 50,000 copies were initially printed, in part because the magazine's first direct-mail campaign drew a better than 10 per cent response, a significant improvement over the industry standard.
