A look at the world of magazine media - Issue #6
How was your 4th of July weekend? Because it was on the weekend, Friday was a very quiet day here in the office. Most of the people I worked with had Monday off, so aside from cleaning up the ever present email spam, Monday was nice and quiet.
Do you have kids? If so, are they (or were they when they were little) listening to Raffi? For some reason, ever since we had kids, the month of July brings this Raffi ear worm into my head and it does not leave until August.
So, I’m sorry to do this to you but let me share with you…
Is that firmly implanted into your skull now? Excellent!
Now...let's review some news.
#1. Think small. Think indie. The Pop Up Grocer is coming to your town.
Pop Up Grocer offers a stage for food startups | Grocery Dive — www.grocerydive.com Grocery news
I’ve been obsessed with this concept since they came to Chicago and set up in Wicker Park for the month of May. So much so that I reached out to them to see if they carried magazines, just like a national chain grocery store. Guess what? They do. They carry a lot of interesting food oriented indie mags in each location.
If they come to your neighborhood, you're in for a treat!
#2. Now where will our #magazine scoops come from?
NY Post Media Columnist Keith Kelly to Retire After 23 Years (Exclusive) — www.thewrap.com Keith Kelly is planning to retire on July 23 after more than 20 years at the tabloid, according to an individual with knowledge of his plans.
For as long as I can remember, Keith Kelly's column in the New York Post was one of the best, if not the best sources of information about the NYC magazine publishing world. The article in “The Wrap” describes Kelly as “widely read and much feared”. Now that's something I did not know about him (The feared part, not the widely read).
If you were a source, and gave your scoop to someone else….
#3. Vogue, Gatekeepers and First Ladies
In Jill Biden’s Vogue cover, there’s optimism and rebuke - The Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com The lighting is warm. The reality is heightened. The pictures signify continuity after a staggering divergence.
A fascinating “hot take” from WaPo’s Robin Givhan about the appearance of First Lady Jill Biden on the cover of the August issue of Vogue Magazine. Biden is the third first lady to make the cover. But many First Ladies have been in the magazine as far back as Lou Henry Hoover.
I found this quote from Givhan quite appropriate for this Conde Nast vehicle when discussing the omission of former First Lady Melania Trump:
“The omission was not an assault by the deep state. Instead, the willful gatekeepers of celebrity culture…- had slammed the entry shut. They ignored her. They declared her irrelevant…Relevance - who is, what is not - has always been the brutal subtext of fashion, the engine that keeps it humming along.”
FYI: Here’s a look through the Vogue archives of all their First Lady portraits.
From the Archives: First Ladies in Vogue | Vogue — www.vogue.com
Tonight, with another election upon us, we looked back through our archives, not for pictures of the presidents, but for our favorite images of the smart, powerful women who stood beside them—from Eleanor Roosevelt to Jacqueline Kennedy to Nancy Reagan to Michelle Obama.
#4. Nieman Lab asks, "Does Reading Fake News Actually Change People's Behavior?"
Does reading fake news actually change people’s behavior? This Covid-19 study says yes, a bit — but potentially an important bit » Nieman Journalism Lab — www.niemanlab.org "Some participants even developed false memories about the fake stories they had read...'Remembering' previously hearing a fake COVID-19 story seemed to make some people in our study more likely to act in a certain way."
My father was the general manager of a traditional magazine, book and newspaper wholesaler, so I grew up around a lot of print products and that included the National Enquirer, Globe, and Weekly World News and a lot of other titles of that ilk. They were the original purveyors of modern “fake news.” My hot take, for what it’s worth, is that while the study says that behavior changes “a bit” from exposure to reading “fake news”, the real issue today is that some our citizens aren't just reading, they are bathing in "fake news."
Rather big difference, I should think.
FWIW: Twitter recently announced that they are expanding their program to identify what are essentially, false, misleading or unverified claims on their site.
Updating our approach to misleading information — blog.twitter.com Twitter introduces new labels and warning messages that will provide additional context and information on some Tweets containing disputed or misleading information related to COVID-19.
Will that help? Stay tuned.
#5. File under "Good News": Comics sales grew in 2020 to $1.28Billion across all channels
2020 North American Comics Sales Grow to $1.28 Billion — www.publishersweekly.com Combined sales of comics periodicals and graphic novels in North American in 2020 climbed to approximately $1.28 billion, according to a joint estimate by pop culture trade news sites ICv2 and Comichron.
Publishers Weekly reports on the growth of an often overlooked segment of print and digital reading: Comics. These days that class of trade also includes digital comics and graphic novels. The reporting also shows that traditional indy book stores remain a big source of sales for these periodicals.
I've long felt that one of the worst aspects of the on-going consolidation of the publishing business is that the distribution of books, magazines and comics (and newspapers) have all disengaged and consolidated into their own separate channels. A book wholesaler does not carry magazines, or comics. And vice versa. In the long run, I think this hurts everyone because there are so many opportunities for all of these print products to promote and market themselves together.
To use some dreaded business speak, the synergies are there. But no one is using them.
What are you reading this week?
#6. You're moment of special interest edition magazine zen...
