Scrolling online or flipping through Toronto Life magazine can be an absurd experience. I know I’m not the only one who’s noticed the well-written investigative journalism or deeply-researched essays on social issues peak out behind a barrage of lifestyle ditties about local celebrities and mega-million mansions.
Established in 1966, the magazine is a winner of numerous Canadian national magazine awards and supports rigorous long-form journalism. But that’s not what it’s known for, and to the average reader at least, that’s not its brand.
so what do they publish
Their bread and butter are lifestyle pieces. The website and glossy print are a feast for the eyes and wallets, if they’re full: real estate, restaurants, gift guides, style and swanky events. As far as culture goes, Toronto Life covers lifestyle. Unlike publications such as the New York Magazine or The New Yorker whom it appears to emulate at least in part, there are no regular theater, book or art reviews. The emphasis is on style, the dining scene and real estate and lots of it. After all, what would life in Toronto be without exploding real estate?
There is the locally famous list of top influential Torontonians, published annually (which in my opinion barely changes, we get it Drake is from Toronto) there are Q&A articles with the movers and shakers such as CEOs of companies or politicians (I actually really like those) and then there are the Society pages which feature the very strange articles about what did Toronto celebrities got up to according to their Instagram on Christmas, first day of school, etc. pieces.
Here is a typical collection of articles, peppered regularly by advertorials by Amex, Pusateri’s and their ilk.
But then in the midst of all of this lifestyle fluff, six-million-dollar home listings and ultimate gift guides (an eight-thousand-dollar purse in the shape of a cell phone anyone?) there is really serious journalism. Toronto Life consistently publishes excellent, compelling, well-researched and gutsy pieces.
For example the publication recently made waves publishing an investigative piece on a local ob/gyn who dangerously induced pregnancies to bill higher rates for weekend deliveries.
The publication of the article helped change the legal precedent for journalistic access to records about adjudication of medical crimes within medical associations.
In addition to crime reporting, their journalists also delve deeply and compassionately into social issues. Real social issues. Issues that arise from systemic, institutionalized failures of our society. Issues that are driven by rampant inequality in our city. Homelessness. Racial discrimination.
Starting to see how it’s WEIRD that this important long form work is buried under a mountain of lifestyle ephemera? I can’t be the only one to have noticed.
So who’s this all for?
An easily attainable media kit tells you all you need to know about the audience of the print Toronto Life, and then tells you even more about why this strange dichotomy might be intentional. The audience is educated, older, wealthy - as in millionaire wealthy- readers and “more likely to buy a watch in the last 12 month” whatever that means? Its online audience skews younger, but isn’t far off.
See for yourself:
These are stats shared with potential advertisers to give a sense of the kind of audience ads will be targeting. And, while editorial and marketing departments are separate, no doubt audience determines the direction of the magazine to some degree.
If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
When I talk about the thing that bugs me about Toronto Life, I am talking about what appears to be an incongruity between these well-written, well-researched long reads in Toronto Life and well… the rest of Toronto Life. Doublethink, a term out of Orwell’s 1984, is the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.
And yes, reading a Toronto Life magazine is an exercise in Doublethink. Though in a way the publication is a microcosm of our broken and unequal city itself. Living in Toronto is often an exercise in Doublethink. This is a city in which glamorous lifestyles powered by new and generational wealth coexist neatly with a housing and homelessness crisis, growing gun violence, ineffectual social services, overcrowded schools and a broken transportation system.
Here was the glaring contradiction that really got me:
“How a city obsessed with growth and prosperity forgot about its most vulnerable”
let’s read that again
How a city obsessed with growth and prosperity forgot about its most vulnerable
This is an incredibly well-written article about the systemic and institutional issues behind our broken housing system that appears in a magazine that calls a $700k condo reasonably priced - FINALLY!
if you’re curious, yes, the bed is right on top of the kitchen.
For me this Doublethink is especially obvious where stories about eviction, growing homelessness and the housing crisis are set alongside cheery pieces on expensive real estate. AS IF rising rents and unaffordable home ownership are not directly related to an out of control hot market, growing capital from home ownership and greater wealth inequality in the city!
Why…
If we are to listen to the late great Maya Angelou, “When people show you who they are, believe them” then St. Joseph Media, the owner and publisher of Toronto Life is a company that engages Brands with People, that’s what they tell us on their website anyway. Is it fair to say then that whenever good journalism is published, it happens en route to securing the primary goal, which is brand-reader engagement?
Anyway, I’m not saying it’s all bad
Now I know it sounds like I’m full on hating on Toronto Life and I’m not (whatever, take my word for it or don’t). I mean, I do hate some of it. But I really am genuinely curious about the very obvious cognitive dissonance in a publication that is such a long-standing and robust institution in our city.
I propose a few theories:
Toronto Life has developed a well-functioning patronage model. Of course journalism isn’t free, especially not the kind of long well-written pieces I am talking about here. In order to make them happen, we gotta see a few Rolex ads and read about how a couple turned a two-million-dollar fixer upper into a three-million-dollar dream home.
Toronto Life and St. Joseph Media derive social capital and intellectual value from those serious journalistic pieces, giving readers a sense that they are engaging with meaningful journalism, which, let me be clear, they are. It gives the publication gravitas and authority in order to continue peddling its advertisers’ wares.
The articles about social issues stemming from ingrained inequality which is sustained by a status quo benefiting the upper classes are merely stories to its affluent audience. They are safe voyeuristic experiences of real danger those below them face.
Ok one more: a byline in Toronto Life is highly coveted by journalists, it’s a pretty big deal. Because of this, I think it’s unlikely we will see any of our local writers openly question or criticize the publication’s intentions and also why few of them would turn their nose at an opportunity to write for TL.
And another question. Why aren’t more of us outraged by the apolitical, indulgent display of wealth in this publication and in this city when we know capital is being accumulated and grown as a result of a long-maintained status quo and the ever-flowing transfer of generational wealth?
Maybe it’s because the audience in the media kit doesn’t look like Elon Musk. They’re not billionaires. Their equity grew almost accidentally. Maybe their wealth still feels somehow attainable to us and the couple chasing that dream home even looks a little like us. Maybe things just haven’t gotten bad enough.
Anyway, here are some more BIZARRE juxtapositions for your viewing pleasure: