Ghost of a flea: In Canada it is liberals who know how to run a business

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October 02, 2007

In Canada it is liberals who know how to run a business

First it was the National Post*; now, once again, it is the Western Standard. Note to all "conservative" publications in Canada wanting me to provide free content: My work will cost you money.** Western Standard editor Kevin Steel's last note to me in this latest exchange opines that Maclean's is paying its writers; I gather I am meant to believe this constitutes unfair competition. It was like pulling teeth to get the Western Standard to offer me a "free" subscription when I was writing for their blog. Not that they bothered to send me a single issue come to think of it.

Kevin,

Thanks for your note. As Ezra still has no paying work to offer, please feel free to go right ahead and delete the account you have set up for me. Best of luck finding people to write your content; may you get exactly what you pay for.

Cheers,
Nick

Which is far more polite than this pyramid scheme of a magazine deserves, particularly given Ezra Levant told me the writing would become a paying gig, this well before the first issue was published. I cannot imagine Mark Steyn, Colby Cosh or David Warren are doing charity work for him now. Ezra, I explained this to you in a note dated March 26, 2005; you never offered the simple courtesy of a reply. And Kevin, before you ask, if you want me to come around and vacuum the floor or clean the windows at your office, I am pretty much going to want to be paid for that too.

* That means you, Adam Daifallah.
** Also, bite me.

October 5, 2007 Update: The Western Standard has stopped the presses. Jay Currie comments:

What’s unfortunate about the Western Standard story is that, had Ezra spent the same money building a serious online publication it would be a huge, well read, must read website. All that paper and all that ink was just overhead the web lets you do without.

Point taken. But there is still a lot of money to be made with paper and ink if you know what you are doing; the Toronto Star razes forests for no other reason than to boost its circulation figures and they have to support an old-fashioned union shop. The low overhead, on-line only Western Standard will meet the same fate as its print edition if it follows the print edition's business model.

What is a Canadian conservative publication to do?

First, do not alienate your base. Canada's articulate, internet-based conservative voices could comfortably fit into a Casino Niagara shuttle-bus. We all know each other. We are all feisty (for Canadians). We all have audiences we have built for ourselves. There is no reason whatsoever we should contribute our work without being paid for it.

Second, a corollary of the first, you need to host a conversation that is relevant and interesting. Off the top of my head, I can think of three NDP-voting flakes whose comment sections are more interesting on a day-to-day basis than the last three years of the Shotgun. (Not to mention Kate MacMillan: Her only overhead is roadkill and she has built a community with it.) You can get away with thinking readers are part of estate property if you are Canada's "newspaper of record", a vanity project like Walrus or a CBC mandarin on Front Street. If you are a conservative you are supposed to know better. Nobody owes the Western Standard anything. Not our free content. Not our attention. Sadly, in the end, not even our sympathy.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 2, 2007 07:14 AM

Comments

Actually, my favorite Ezra scheme is charging people to enter a writing contest and then publishing the winner.

But don't be hard on Kevin. The poor bugger is being asked to revive the Shotgun with zero budget and the loonies circling more than willing to write for free.

Posted by: Jay Currie at October 4, 2007 04:40 AM

Besides, it's not like Kevin is just setting up an aggregator using free content from other people's RSS feeds and then populating the resulting product with Google AdSense ads (all without compensating the content providers).

Right? :-)

Posted by: Sean M. at October 6, 2007 10:46 PM

I would not hearing a bit more about that myself. My copyright notice went up the day after I asked to have my content removed from that RSS feed.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at October 7, 2007 01:11 PM

While I like -- and mostly admire -- Monsieur Currie, the plain truth is that I've never encountered a pot that I haven't wanted to stir or a button that I have been able to resist pushing.

Which is why I keep my ass parked firmly behind a camera these days. I wind up with less people pissed off at me that way.

Posted by: Sean McCormick at October 7, 2007 03:03 PM