Maclean's

The Business Magazine was founded in October 1905 by then 43-year-old publisher and entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, who wrote the magazine's aim was not "merely to entertain but also to inspire its readers". Maclean hired Thomas B. Costain as editor in 1914. Costain invigorated the magazine's coverage of the First World War, running first-person accounts of life on the Western Front as well as Maclean's own critiques of Canada's war effort. Maclean's articles came into conflict with wartime censorship regulations, and Costain was ordered to remove one such article from the May 1918 issue as it was too critical of war policy. Costain left the magazine to become a novelist and was replaced by J. Vernon Mackenzie who remained at the helm until 1926. During his tenure, ''Maclean's achieved national stature. Readers would go to read The Back Page'' first and then proceed to read the magazine from back to front. When Doyle left ''Maclean's'' in 1993, publisher Brian Segal appointed Robert Lewis as editor-in-chief. The managing editor under Doyle, Lewis had opened the magazine's Ottawa bureau in 1975 when it became a newsmagazine. Under Doyle, Lewis was responsible for the launch of the first university ranking issue. While he was editor, writer Ann Dowsett Johnston won several National Magazine Awards (NMA) for the annual university issue and the magazine received an honourable mention in the 1998 Michener Awards for investigative reporting on sexual harassment and rape in the Canadian military. The article by Jane O'Hara also won two medals at the National Magazine Awards in 1999, including the President's Medal, and "remains one of the most significant and studied feature stories in the history of Canadian magazines," according to an official NMA history. 21st century In 2001, Anthony Wilson-Smith became the 15th editor in the magazine's history. He left the post at the end of February 2005 and was replaced by Kenneth Whyte, who also served as the magazine's publisher. Whyte, who previously edited Saturday Night and the National Post, brought a right-wing focus to the magazine, bringing in conservative columnist Mark Steyn, hiring Andrew Coyne away from the Post, and rehiring Barbara Amiel. He also added a comedy feature by former Liberal Party strategist Scott Feschuk, and a column by Andrew Potter, who previously wrote for left-leaning periodicals. The October 4, 2010, edition of the magazine — published online September 24, 2010 — had a cover article with the headline: "Quebec: The Most Corrupt Province", with the subheading, "Why does Quebec claim so many of the nation's political scandals?" The cover illustration featured the Quebec Winter Carnival mascot, Bonhomme, carrying a suitcase overflowing with cash. This depiction angered some Quebec politicians and organizers of the Carnival. Quebec Premier Jean Charest, wrote a letter to the editor of ''Maclean's'' condemning the magazine's "twisted form of journalism and ignorance", calling it "sensationalist", "far from serious", "simplistic", and "offensive", saying the editor "discredited" the magazine. The magazine refused to back away from its position vis-à-vis corruption in Quebec. ''Maclean's'' acknowledged "that neither its cover story nor an accompanying column provided empirical evidence that Quebec is more corrupt than other provinces". The organizers of Carnaval de Québec sued ''Maclean's'' over the cover showing the iconic figure, settling out of court in November 2010. Rogers Communications announced in September 2016 that, due to falling print ad revenue, the magazine would change its printing schedule from weekly to monthly beginning in January 2017 although it would continue to offer weekly digital editions via Rogers' Texture digital bundle. On March 20, 2019, Rogers announced a deal to sell the magazine to St. Joseph Communications. ==Canadian Islamic Congress complaint==

In December 2007, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) launched complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, British Columbia Human Rights Commission, and the Ontario Human Rights Commission against ''Maclean's, accusing it of publishing 18 articles between January 2005 and July 2007 the group considered Islamophobic in nature, including a column by Mark Steyn titled "The future belongs to Islam". According to the CIC complaint (as discussed in a National Post article by Ezra Levant), Maclean's is "flagrantly Islamophobic" and "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt". In contrast, Levant said the complainants were "illiberal censors who have found a quirk in our legal system, and are using it to undermine our Western traditions of freedom". Maclean's'' consistently took the position that Steyn's article, an excerpt from his best-selling book, America Alone, is a worthy contribution to an important debate on geopolitical and demographic issues, and that plaintiff's demands for equal space for a rebuttal was unreasonable and untenable. Accusations that ''Maclean's'' supported Islamophobic articles and writers continued after the Oct. 26, 2013 issue featured an interview with singer Celine Dion wherein the singer was reported as making racist and insensitive comments about Muslim women's right to wear religious clothing under the proposed Quebec Charter of Values. During a press conference in Montreal on November 9, 2013, Dion's husband and manager Rene Angelil refuted claims that the singer made such comments, touching on both his and Celine's shared ancestry: "… both Céline and I share family coming from the Middle-East — me from Lebanon and Syria and her fathers family from Lebanon also… to say she'd make these comments is hurtful to both Céline and her Muslim fans and we have made contact with Maclean's through our legal team." On January 19, 2014, it was reported by Québécois media that ''Maclean's'' and Dion's team had reached an agreement outside of court, with ''Maclean's'' making a (now redacted) apology to Dion within the original article. =="Too Asian?" article==

In the November 2010 university ranking issue under the editorship of Kenneth Whyte and Mark Stevenson, reporter Stephanie Findlay and senior writer Nicholas Köhler wrote an article about the perceived over-representation of Asian students at Canadian universities, entitled "Too Asian?" This led to allegations that ''Maclean's'' intentionally perpetuated racial stereotypes to court controversy for the sake of publicity. Amidst criticism from a number of student unions and politicians, on December 16, 2010, Toronto's city council voted to request an apology from ''Maclean's magazine as the third Canadian city to do so after Victoria and Vancouver. In a letter to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Senator Vivienne Poy suggested that public outrage over the Maclean's'' article, "defined as material that is denigrating to an identifiable group", should deem it ineligible for government funding. ==Editors-in-chief==

• W. Arnot Craick (1905—1910) • Roy Fry (1911—1913) • Thomas B. Costain (1914—1921) • J. Vernon Mackenzie(1921—1926) • Borden Spears (1964—1969) • Kenneth Whyte (2005—2011) • Mark Stevenson (2011—2016) • Alison Uncles (2016—2022) • Sarah Fulford (2022—present) ==Guide to Canadian Universities==

The ''Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities is published annually in March. It is also known as Maclean's University Guide''. It includes information from the Maclean's University Rankings, an issue of the magazine proper that is published annually in November, primarily for students in their last year of high school and entering their first year in Canadian universities. Both the Guide and the rankings issue feature articles discussing Canadian universities and ranking them by order of quality. The rankings focus on taking a measure of the "undergraduate experience", comparing universities in three peer groupings: Primarily Undergraduate, Comprehensive, and Medical Doctoral. Schools in the Primarily Undergraduate category are largely focused on undergraduate education, with relatively few graduate programs. Comprehensives have a significant amount of research activity and a wide range of graduate and undergraduate programs, including professional degrees. Medical Doctoral institutions have a broad range of PhD programs and research, as well as medical schools. In early 2006, ''Maclean's'' announced that in June 2006, it would be introducing a new annual issue called the University Student Issue. The issue would feature the results of a survey of recent university graduates from each Canadian university. However, many universities, such as the University of Calgary, McMaster University, and the University of Toronto, refused to take part in this exercise. The three institutions stated that they questioned the "magazine's ability to conduct a survey that would be rigorous and provide accurate and useful information to students and their parents". In response, ''Maclean's sought the results of two university-commissioned student surveys: the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium (CUSC) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Results from these surveys, along with Maclean's own graduate survey, were published in the June 26, 2006, edition of Maclean's''. For the November 2006 University Rankings issue, 22 Canadian universities refused to provide information directly to ''Maclean's. To rank those universities, the magazine relied on data it collected itself, as well as data drawn from third party sources such as Statistics Canada. Among the universities that refused to provide information directly to Maclean's'' in the fall of 2006 were: University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, Dalhousie University, McMaster University, University of New Brunswick, University of Manitoba, Université du Québec network, Simon Fraser University, University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge, Ryerson University, Université de Montréal, University of Ottawa, York University, Concordia University, University of Western Ontario, Lakehead University, Queen's University, Carleton University, and University of Windsor. The withholding of data served as a means of voicing the universities' displeasure with the methodology used to determine the ''Maclean's ranking. Indira Samarasekera, president of The University of Alberta, further discussed this in the article, "Rising Up Against Rankings", published in the April 2, 2007, issue of Inside Higher Ed.'' The University Rankings Issue contains a compilation of different charts and lists judging the different aspects of universities in different categories. The three main areas listed in chart form in the University Rankings Issue as at November 3, 2006, are: the overall rankings themselves, the university student surveys, and the magazine's "national reputational rankings" of the schools. The National Reputational Rankings, like the main university rankings, are broken into three subcategories: medical doctoral, comprehensive, and primarily undergraduate and are based on opinions of the quality of the universities. The quality opinions gathered were contributed by secondary school principals, guidance counsellors, organization and company heads, and recruiters. The results of the reputational rankings are included in the main university rankings, and account for 16% of a university's total ranking score. Criticism A University of Windsor team, led by professors Stewart Page and Ken Cramer, conducted an annual analysis of the ''Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities since its inception, publishing compiled findings as The Marketing of Canadian University Rankings: A Misadventure Now 24 Years Old'', in 2016, summarized by its authors as: Co-author Stewart Page had observed, in 2012, that numerous Canadian schools had withdrawn active cooperation from Maclean’s annual surveys. ==See also==