NOW (magazine)

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For the British publication, see NOW magazine (UK).


Front page of NOW
Type	Alternative weekly
Format	Tabloid

Owner	Now Communications Inc
Publisher	Michael Hollett
Editor	Alice Klein
Founded	1981
Headquarters	189 Church Street Toronto, ON M5B 1Y7 Canada

Website: nowtoronto.com

NOW is an alternative newsweekly in Toronto, Canada published by Now Communication Inc. While officially named NOW Magazine, it is physically a tabloid-sized newspaper, printed on newsprint. It is distributed for free at circulation points in Greater Toronto, particularly in downtown Toronto. Its weekly readership was measured to be approximately 395,000 in Print Measurement Bureau 2006.

1 History
2 Content
3 Controversy
4 External links

[edit] History

NOW was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein along with several other former members of the Socialist League (also known as the Forward Group) such as Wayne Roberts, the former editor of Forward. While vaguely left-wing, NOW was intended not as a socialist paper but as an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage. With rare exceptions, it endorses members of the New Democratic Party for federal, provincial and municipal office.

NOW has been online since 1996, first as now.com and then as nowtoronto.com since 2000.

The Toronto Star launched eye weekly in 1991 as a competitor to NOW. As of 2006 NOW continues to have a greater circulation and is more widely read.

NOW is also a central sponsor and its owners hold an ownership stake in North by Northeast, a major annual music festival in Toronto.

[edit] Content

Syndicated content in NOW includes Dan Savage's Savage Love sex advice column, Rob Brezsny's Real Astrology, and Lynda Barry's Ernie Pook's Comeek. Prominent columnists include feminist activist and author Susan G. Cole who has recently been touring college campuses debating the merits of pornography with porn actor Ron Jeremy, film critics Cameron Bailey, Glenn Sumi and John Harkness, tech writer Joseph Wilson, and music writers Sarah Liss and Tim Perlich.

[edit] Controversy

Partly financed by extensive personal ads and sexual service ads, NOW became the subject of an unprecedented and unusual police raid on August 31, 1990. NOW's publishing company was charged with solicitation —"communicating for the purposes of prostitution" — through the "sex ads." The charges were eventually dropped. The same personal ads were a source of contention for North York mayor Mel Lastman who said he didn't understand them and for this reason banned NOW from being distributed at North York City Hall. However, the magazine was still available at the library which was housed in the same building.