www .theotherpress.ca Exclusive, web-only content! An in-depth took into the real costs of counterfeit goods by Knowlton Thomas ba Re sree Ee Angela Espinoza gives us a web-only review of Splice! CHECK IT OUT! LETTITOR How do you determine publishing priorities? Garth McLennan Editor in Chief s one might expect with myself being pretty involved in the newspaper business, over the years I’ve developed an affinity for a wide variety of publications. Every morning I look forward to reading The Province, and every week I await the arrival of the next issue of The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated and Macleans. With all of these, I tend to read them through pretty thoroughly, and in the last few months I’ve started to witness a trend with one of them, and after some thought, it got me thinking about how a publication should dictate the way it presents news. One of the most persistent challenges with running the newspaper you’re holding in your hands is trying to decide which article is best suited for the cover. Should the cover story go to the best written article, the article with the most depth, or the article that is most likely to attract the highest number of readers possible? That’s the trend I spoke of earlier in Macleans. Now, for the most part I consider Macleans to be a fine magazine, and I enjoy reading it each and every week. There is a lot of in-depth reporting and every time I pick it up I tend to learn something new. Now, that being said, there are also a few problems I have with Macleans. | think that it is fairly common knowledge that they go with whichever story they believe will garner the highest pick-up rate for their cover story, regardless of how inflammatory, and at times frivolous, it can be. Take last week’s issue for example. In big bold letters the cover of the magazine blared: “Is America going third world?” Being a seasoned Macleans reader and fully aware that they have a tendency to at times attempt to scare the reader into buying their product, I was sceptical. After reading the article, a mammoth piece that delved into the current issues surrounding some of the part’s of America that have been economically stagnant for decades, my opinion hadn’t changed. What the article did get me thinking about though was the integral obligations modern media outlets face. Is it journalistically responsible to write and print an article that is designed solely to spook the reader? I don’t think so. That sort of reporting isn’t enough to turn me off the magazine completely, because Macleans does produce some truly outstanding journalism every week, but it should make the average reader aware of what they’re reading or seeing every time they interact with not just Macleans but the media as a whole, and that they shouldn’t always take what they’re told at face value. This may not seem like a very important issue for your friendly- neighbourhood-student-newspaper, but it is a big one for every major daily and most magazines in North America. the Driginal $10 off any acne of $50 or more upon presen ation of this coupon 2 sep coupon expires Dec 31, 2011 agit ao BC www.capsbicycleshop.com phone: 604-524-3611 WRITE FOR US!