Toronto gets a new magazine
The pregame is coming back, Mark Carney's Youtube channel.
Good afternoon everyone.
Yesterday evening started with dinner at SARA and ended with an event at the Park Hyatt hosted by Knightcap Chess Club. Taylor Harrison, the founder, and I recently connected after he complimented Milk Bag’s rebrand, and he clearly has good taste because this was a swanky as heck chess event. His team hosts meet-ups across major North American cities and, more recently, Milan, riding on the mania that built around the game during the pandemic.
Earlier today, they announced they were opening applications for their first invitational at the Drake Underground—if you’re feeling brave.
People like to complain about how there’s nothing to do in Toronto, and that’s not really the case. Many people are hosting fun, affordable events, and I think you can choose whether you’re in, or in the way. Supporting evidence: tonight, two new publications are hosting launch parties (more on that below) and while both events are sold out, if you ask them nicely they might still let you in. I hope to see some of you out on the town tonight.
Milk Bag covers the business stories you won’t find on Apple News. If you have a story tip or want to work together, email me.
It’s been a tough week for the media industry: Yahoo Finance laid off their Canadian team, CPAC, an important source of political coverage, cut staff and cancelled two shows, and in a House of Commons meeting on the state of media in Canada, Bell Media executive Richard Gray confirmed that its news operations were losing $40 million a year, despite strong viewership.
The headlines are bad, but I’m still seeing glimmers of hope against this backdrop. Also this week, the city gained two new publications in the form of Sorry Mag and the Toronto Review. These projects won’t replace local media, but they signal the start of what I think will be a re-birth for the industry in the next five to ten years. Milk Bag is a (very patient) bet on that.
Yesterday afternoon, I spoke to Jaime Eisen, Alex Robert Ross, and Ian Wood from Sorry Mag ahead of their launch at Paradise Grapevine. We reflected on the state of media now, and how the edition came together.
There’s a lot of excitement around new media projects in Canada, but how do you interpret the sad news we’re seeing in the industry?
Alex Robert Ross: We’ve worked in or near this industry for most of our adult lives. We’re not a solution to the business troubles that ail modern media, but it is something we have to engage with. I worked as journalist in New York for a long time, and so it was front and centre, watching how much changed from 2012 onwards, from the very first pivots to video.
Jaime Eisen: As a publicist I am hyper-aware of what’s happening, and it’s disheartening. This doesn’t minimize anyone who’s lost their job, but since my mom was in journalism school, she was told it would be impossible to get a job. And then when I was in journalism school, I was told it would be impossible to get a job. This has been happening. But for every story like that, I’m also seeing the opposite, like W Magazine investing in WYouth, or seeing the Toronto Review and Darby, or the publishers at the Issues conference last month. People are hungry for things that feel interesting, and not AI slop.
How did you all come up with the idea?
Ian Wood: I came up with a concept to make a magazine around Ontario, at the time because I felt like Toronto was too small. But I was wrong, massively wrong on that. The thing is, everyone complains about it, and I wanted to be like, well, all right, what are the good bits?
Alex Robert Ross: Ian and I, both being from Britain, have an outsider perspective. We’ve seen firsthand how Toronto is a very special place, but Torontonians uniquely bad about talking about why they love their city. We had a moment after the World Series where I thought that would change.
It’s funny how we needed the Brits to step in. You tapped some great writers for this. How did it come together, and are there any stories that stand out?
Alex Robert Ross: When we put out a call for pitches, it was the same week that Donald Trump started talking about 51st state, so unintentionally, we ended up getting that bit of Torontonian pride, which really helped it to spread far and wide. Those pitches helped us see what this thing could become. One story that stands out is sort of a personal essay by India Sawh about channeling grief through a job at Dufferin Mall, but I think that undersells it. Her writing is astonishing, and there’s something about the mall itself this is very Sorry Mag. She has a line in there that describes it as sort of stubbornly ungentrified.
Milk Bag had a party last week. Serviette had one the other month. With Sorry and the Review, it feels like the spring of the magazine launch. Why a party?
Jaime Eisen: We put so much blood, sweat and tears into this and so we just wanted to celebrate with our friends and community, and the contributors and their communities. This thing exists and it’s out in the world now. It’s almost like a birthday party, because, yeah, we did it. It’s been a labour of love.
How often will we see editions from you?
Jaime Eisen: I feel like we’d all have different answers. The reality is that we’re self-funded, and it’s expensive to make a magazine. I think let’s say once a year.
Further reading
—There’s a new literary magazine in Toronto (University of Toronto)
Heidi O’Neill, a former Nike executive, is the new CEO of Lululemon. The company has struggled to turn sales around in North America, and the shake up will look to get more innovative products to market faster. I’m waiting for Chip Wilson to weigh in, though he might be busy: Bloomberg reported last week that he launched an athletic-wear business focused on smaller brands.
A 12,000-acre Georgian Bay island is on the market for $30 million. Good for any billionaires in your life who are looking to set up a family compound.
A piece in The New York Times looks at the investor money pouring into U.S. bagel chains. Montreal readers will roll their eyes at this, but bagels seem to be trending across the country. While they are popular—Henderson Brewing is hosting a bagel festival this week, I’ve seen Primrose on my feed more than ever—I’d be surprised if any private equity firms are eyeing investment in the few Canadian chains that would meet the necessary footprint for a deal: What A Bagel, Kettlemans, or The Great Canadian Bagel. According to the piece, developments in tech, social media, and delivery have turned a “notoriously unprofitable and unscalable business” into an attractive one. And if you work at a private equity firm invested in a Canadian bagel business, email me.
Open Table has acquired Libro, a Montreal-based booking platform. It has more than 3,000 restaurants on its platform and in 2024 ranked 75th on The Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s Top Growing Companies.
High alcohol prices are reportedly bringing the pregame back. Would I do this? It depends. Is RBC planning to raise the price of wine guitars?
A new Canadaland episode analyzes Mark Carney’s new YouTube channel. Forward Guidance will be a new series of addresses from the prime minister, similar to the updates he used to give during his time as the governor of the central bank. I think it's smart for any government, at any level, to better own the communication they have with voters. Interestingly the world leader with the most YouTube subscribers at the moment (more than 30 million) is India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who seems to publish videos constantly.
Code of Conduct, the documentary about the Hockey Canada trial, will premiere at Hot Docs this weekend.
Badiali is opening a new location in Mirvish Village in May. In other food news, Contrada hosted a pop-up with Simpl Things (I’m told this could be to get the attention of the Michelin Guide), and Agora will open in Yorkville.