So Long, Not Long Enough
Editor’s Note
We received our first letter in response to last issue’s cover story, “Feminism for sale: the real reason the feminist movement is losing momentum,” just one day after subscriber copies were mailed—and a full week before the issue hit newsstands. We received eight letters in all, and several private responses.
Some said we were trying to be trendy; others, that we were being intentionally hurtful. Of course, neither is true. We were trying to do what This Magazine has always done best: communicate ideas. And whether or not you agree with the ideas in the piece, by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, I believe we achieved our goal. The letters are proof of that.
This issue is sure to inspire letters as well (yes, that’s Jesus Christ on page 16 taking a union-mandated break from crucifixion to order a double-double). But you’ll have to send those letters to my successor, who, as I write this, has yet to be named.
This issue is my last as editor before I pack up and move to Ottawa to become an editor at Canadian Geographic magazine. I’m sad to leave and can’t help but feel that my time here has been too short. But the wonderful thing about the This Magazine community is that nobody ever really goes away—they just go on to become contributors and volunteers and subscribers and donors. Now, you can count me among them.
While we’ve been skewered on our letters pages, the magazine community has been downright laudatory. Utne magazine nominated us for two Independent Press Awards—in the social/cultural coverage and general excellence categories. We were nominated for five National Magazine Awards, and, at the awards presentation in early June, Bill Reynolds took home a gold medal—our first since 1997—for “Crossing the line,” his thoughtful essay on dissent after September 11, which appeared in our September/October 2004 issue.
It has been my sincere pleasure to work with writers like Reynolds, writers who have helped to make me a better editor. So I feel prepared to move on to the next stage of my career. I believe I will be as inspired by the Canadian Geographic team as I have been by the gang at This Magazine.
In fact, it’s already begun. At a roundtable discussion in June attended by David Suzuki and winners of the 2005 Environment Awards, Idil Mussa, an activist, environmentalist and host of the television show CG Kids, was asked to make a short speech. Addressing the crowd of nearly 100 people at Toronto’s Metropolitan Hotel, she said that she had almost declined the offer when organizers told her the location of the event. The Metropolitan Hotel has been the target of several high-profile demonstrations on behalf of the often ill treated and largely immigrant workforce.
Mussa told the crowd, many from outside Toronto, that she decided to attend because she believed she could have a greater impact by standing up and speaking about the injustice than by not saying anything. Her actions took guts. I was proud to be there to listen to her, and I’m proud to join a team that would have her as a spokesperson.
But don’t think you’ve seen the last of me.
Patricia D’Souza editor@thismagazine.ca
