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	Front page of Eye Weekly
Type	Weekly alternative newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	Torstar
Publisher	Carol Peddie
Founded	1991
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Official website	www.eyeweekly.com

Eye Weekly is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, and is currently published by their Star Media Group.

[edit] History

Eye Weekly began publishing on October 10 1991. The content was first posted online via Usenet in March, 1994, and its website launched in October, 1994, becoming one of the first publications to put its content online. It had an audited circulation of 120,000 copies^[1], as of a 2005-2007 report. However, total readership has been in decline since 2003.

The founding managing editor was offbeat Toronto Star writer William Burrill. Burrill was replaced in 1993 by Bill Reynolds, previously the music editor, while Burrill stayed on as a columnist until returning to the Toronto Star in 1998. In 2002, after a series of resignations and dismissals (see below, under Controversies),[1] Catherine Tunnacliffe was named Managing Editor, and was later promoted to the position of Publisher in 2005; former intern/Music Editor Stuart Berman was promoted to the Senior Editor position. However, following the hiring of former Eye Society columnist Alan Vernon to the newly created Editorial Director position, Tunnacliffe left in 2006 to work for parent company the Toronto Star. In late 2008, Berman was moved to the new Online Editor position to oversee the eyeweekly.com website; former intern/City editor Edward Keenan was promoted to the Senior Editor position. The current masthead also includes Kieran Grant (Film Editor), Dave Morris (Music Editor), David Balzer (Arts Editor), Caroline Lock (Listings Editor) and Melinda Mattos (Special Sections/Lifestyle Editor).

In its short time, the publication has boasted three distinct logos. Eye Weekly has also made a sometimes awkward transition from a mostly irreverent alternative newsweekly focused on acerbic commentary and rock and roll, to an emphasis on youthful gay and nightlife subcultures, then a renewed focus on cinema and municipal issues. The latest incarnation, unveiled on October 27, 2005, features a fashion- and advertiser-conscious design with more graphics.

While the publication is officially referred to as EYE WEEKLY, logos have displayed names such as eYe WEEKLY, and just plain eye. Currently, the publication's logo is formally displayed as EYE WEEKLY.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] 1991

The first controversy to hit Eye Weekly struck before the publication even hit the streets, when competitor Now Magazine discovered editors were using their ads in a prototype the month before Eye officially began publishing. They launched a $100,000 lawsuit, and Eye's lawyer, David Deeth, quickly apologized and removed the prototypes from circulating among ad agencies to drum up business.^[2]

[edit] 1999

In the February issue of Toronto Life magazine, Robert Fulford, one of the most esteemed magazine editors in the country, wrote a long feature about Toronto's two free weeklies, Now and Eye, characterizing the former as sincere, the latter as desperate and confused.[2]^[3]

[edit] 2002

Eye's publisher, in the face of continuing economic hardship, began practicing product placement, and nowhere was this more evident than a front-page photo featuring its sex columnist posing on a pool table with a Steamwhistle beer. The magazine then decided to run several pages of advertorial for a local car show without identifying it as such, leading readers to believe that paid ad copy was in fact Eye Weekly editorial copy. When Bill Reynolds, who had been editor of the paper for almost a decade, objected, he was fired. There followed a rash of resignations, which left the masthead almost empty. Film editor Catharine Tunnacliffe, who had just been hired and had not resigned, was tapped to become managing editor (Reynolds had been editor in chief, a position that was not to appear on the Eye masthead again), after which she began hiring a new set of editors.[3]

[edit] 2009

The editors put out an entire issue devoted to Quentin Tarantino's film, Inglorious Basterds. Dated Aug. 20, 2009, the issue contained six features, two food columns, five style pieces, three film pieces, as well as two stories in the music section, four in the arts section, and three more labelled as "fun" written or based on interviews with the film's cast and with Tarantino. The paper's website also offered free Inglorious Basterds desktop wallpaper.[4] That week's editorial by Edward Keenan made no mention of any money changing hands for the extraordinary issue, but called the film "audacious" and "brazen," adding "In Inglourious Basterds, as he has throughout his career, Tarantino has rewritten the rules, shaking us laughing and cheering and flinching out of our comfortable patterns, taking our beliefs about how things are supposed to be and completely screwing them over" and that "We need more people who will disregard conventions and rules and norms ... to force us question to pat assumptions [sic] to see the world in a new way."[5]

[edit] Past columnists

Prominent columnists at various points through the newspaper's life have included:

[edit] Other alumni

[edit] Current contributors

[edit] References

^ Masthead and Contacts - EYE WEEKLY
^ Toronto Star, Sept. 10, 1991, page B5
^ Toronto Life, February, 1999

[edit] External links

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[0] Masthead and Contacts - EYE WEEKLY

[1] Toronto Star, Sept. 10, 1991, page B5

[2] Toronto Life, February, 1999

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