Within the past two weeks, I've heard about two new magazines launching in Canada.

Entrepot, a student-run intellectual rag that aims to get away from the insular campus-based political bickering and deal with ideas about the world.

Walrus Magazine, which has $5 million in funding and aims to be the Canadian Harper's, paying writers well and aiming for a high level of style and content. Their 'preview issue' (sent to potential funders and advertisers) contained work by Tariq Ali, Ann Michaels, and Michael Ignatieff. See also: Globe and Mail article on Walrus and my letter to Walrus magazine.

Both seem to be responding to the low quality of Canadian journalism (North American journalism, actually), thanks to 'convergence', expectations of multiple stories per day, low pay, and profit-hogging. Those are difference aspects of the same problem: in for-profit enterprises run by businessmen, hacks are encouraged and rewarded, while people who want to really understand things and write about them find other venues, or give up.