Print edition of Western Standard folds

The print edition of the Calgary-based conservative magazine The Western Standard has closed up shop, said its publisher yesterday. Ezra Levant said the four-year-old bastion of conservative politics in Western Canada had about 35,000 subscribers but that was not enough to make the magazine financially viable. The Standard was the successor to the Alberta Report which went out of business in 2003. Levant told the Globe and Mail that a lack of ad revenue and competition from the Web contributed to the decision to close down the magazine which will likely continue online in some form.