Archives /// Matthew Blackett
Matthew Blackett is the publisher, creative director and one of the founders of Spacing magazine.
As publisher, Blackett has helped shape the magazine into one of Canada's top small magazines: Blackett was named Editor of the Year for 2007 by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors and Spacing was named 2007 Best Canadian Small Magazine. In 2006, Spacing won a National Magazine Award for Best Editorial Package. Blackett was recently awarded a 2007 Canadian Urban Leadership Award for "City Soul" by the Canadian Urban Institute for his part in creating Spacing. The magazine has also been awarded international design awards for its layout, photography and TTC-inspired subway station buttons, as well as garnering numerous industry nominations. Matthew's writing on Toronto issues can be found on Spacing Toronto, the magazine's daily blog.
Blackett is a graduate of Humber College's journalism school where he won the Toronto Star Award for excellence in student journalism, Kodak Canada Award for student photography, an Ontario Community Newspaper Association award for digital illustration, and a Columbia University Press awards for student newspaper design. In 2005 he returned to Humber to teach journalism students the finer points of newspaper and magazine layout and design.
EMAIL: matt@spacing.ca
November 12th, 2006
City-wide endorsements from local media
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A number of local newspapers and weeklies like to give out their endorsements to specific candidates in specific wards. Spacing has compiled the published endorsements from the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, NOW, North York Mirror, Scarborough Mirror, York Guardian, Etobicoke Guardian, the East York-Riverdale-Beaches Mirror, and the Bloor West Villager. The * indicates which candidate is an incumbent. There are seven wards without an incumbent running. No councillor was acclaimed.
If you want to look up the website of a candidate in your ward, you should check out Who Runs This Town, which lists every candidate in the ...
Spacing & Eye Weekly mayors’ event videos online
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On Monday Nov. 6th, Spacing and Eye Weekly hosted a mayoral non-debate which featured Mayor David Miller and his main challenger Jane Pitfield at The Revival, a refurbished church-cum-club on College Street in Little Italy.
We asked them to prepare a speech that outlined their vision for Toronto's public spaces that was followed by a 25-minute Q&A with our panel of John Lorinc (Spacing Votes columnist), Ed Keenan (Eye Weekly city editor), and Dale Duncan (Spacing managing editor).
If you didn't get to the event, and you are still wondering which candidate deserves your vote, you can watch the candidates' ...
Is voter turnout a myth?
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Kenneth Kidd wrote today in the Toronto Star that low voter turnout is not necessarily a bad thing. This prompted a response from Dave Meslin of Who Runs This Town, an organization created to give comprehensive information to voter.
November 11th, 2006
Miller pushing buttons
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I ran into the mayor at the YIMBY festival in late-October and he told me his campaign was about to release buttons that were the same size as Spacing's subway station buttons.
The Toronto Sun's election blogger Rob Granastein discovered it Friday on David Miller's 44 ward in 44 hours tour.
November 10th, 2006
Jane Pitfield’s NFL numbers don’t add up
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Most everyone who has analyzed the numbers attached to Jane Pitfield's campaign promises has come away scratching their heads -- the numbers don't seem to add up. But you'd think even her quick, throw-away jabs at David Miller would at least pass the mustard.
On Wednesday, the Pitfield campaign launched an anti-Miller manifesto in the National Post outlining everything the mayor has done wrong (see the full-page ad). While a number of the points of contention have become hallmarks of her campaign, one small beef is that Miller is anti-NFL (we at Spacing have no idea ...
November 9th, 2006
The (lost) art of voting?
10 Comments
This morning a local arts advocacy org, Artsvote.ca, released results of their all-candidates survey on arts and culture issues in Toronto. The good part? Artsvote asked some great questions on arts funding, affordable housing, and support for culture in Toronto. The not-so-good part? Very few candidates returned the surveys, with zero surveys returned for many wards. However, the responses they did receive are revealing, and Artsvote.ca, a volunteer-run, impartial org, is still happy to receive and post last-minute survey responses from any candidate. Go to their site to either read up on your ...
November 8th, 2006
Pitfield releases attack ads on Miller
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Jane Pitfield released a full-page ad in today's National Post that takes issue with most everything Mayor Miller has done in his first term [for larger version download PDF, 45k]. Other than her campaign logo and slogan (she has thankfully dropped the misplaced comma), the ad is devoid of any information on Ms. Pitfield, or how she will fix the problems she claims Miller has created. The only indication that her campaign may address her own platform is the cut-corner in the bottom right: "Stay tuned for Jane Pitfield's vision for Toronto." I don't think it's ...
Why Vote?
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Who Runs This Town has launched a 60-second internet commercial to encourage people to vote. Pass it along to friends by sending them the direct link.
November 7th, 2006
Best election lawn sign
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Desmond Cole, the City Idol winner and Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, candidate, may not have the best chance of winning in the highly contested race against Adam Vaughan, Helen Kennedy and Chris Oullette, but if there's an award for the best election lawn sign, Cole should win it hands down.
Using an unusual shape is a smart tactic to gain attention -- in a subtle way, it shows that the candidate is creative and pays attention to the details. The colours are great and the layout is nice without any clutter. One of the other City ...
Launch party for documentary on Miller’s 2003 campaign
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7:00PM, Tuesday, November 7, 2006
The National Film Board Theatre. 150 John Street at Richmond.
Three years ago David Miller came out of nowhere to become mayor of Toronto. It was one of the most exciting political races Toronto has seen in ages. Filmmaker Andrew Munger had unprecedented access to the candidate, his family and campaign team throughout the year-long campaign. Campaign: The Making of a Candidate is the behind the scenes story of David Miller's unlikely victory.
Check out the screening of the rarely seen (and never broadcasted) director's cut of Campaign: The Making of a Candidate.
The screening will ...
