It's Tuesday: 5 Things About the World of Magazines and Media - Issue #44
So how busy are you, really?
In this age of always on, nonstop notifications and interconnected connectivity, it's easy to presume that we are busier than ever. It feels safe to presume that day to day life and work in offices of long ago were analog islands of lesser productivity.
I'm old enough to remember the end of the age of inter-office memos and the wonders of thermal paper fax machines. But from what I recall, we were just as busy then as we are now. There was just a bit more chatter in the hallways.
In our homes, cable TV and remotes were a thing, but phones were on walls and tables. The analog to Siri and Alexa back then was an old edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
There are days when this app based, SAAS oriented world seems less seamless and more prone to error. If your ISP goes down, so do you. If your system gets a bug, so do you. If that new update is required, you'll wait until it's done optimizing. Change over to a new system? When has that ever been fun?
And none of that goes away when you get home, either. Hulu glitches. Your wifi goes down. You go to order tickets for a vacation to discover your app wants you to update, then log in again and re-enter everything.
For all of these reasons, last Friday's opening comments in writer Ann Friedman's weekly newsletter really spoke to me. In her opening comments she discusses the efforts involved in life "admin" and says:
"The system is designed to get us to internalize its failures and bog us down in the details so we lose sight of what's possible. The stuff of life-admin is often unjust. We should get a simple bill from the government. We should have health care that isn't tied to employment. We should have time to convalesce when we're sick... And we are allowed to be grumpy about the fact that we do not."
It's Tuesday, so go ahead and be grumpy. And if you have a moment, check out the wonderful writing of Ann Friedman.
1___What Happened to 50 Magazines Since the Pandemic Began (And what happened to Vogue Magazine Will Totally Blow Your Mind!)
What Happened to 50 Magazines Since the Pandemic Began – WWD — wwd.com WWD analyzed 50 U.S.-based titles to find out how the pandemic and general media landscape impacted print magazine frequency.
No, I’m kidding about the Vogue Magazine part.
There is absolutely nothing in this article that is surprising, shocking, or mildly unexpected. Major, large scale publishers are taking a long, hard look at their print properties and making decisions based on the bottom line. The bottom line, unfortunately is that ad revenue is not keeping pace with rising costs of production and most of the major print publishers don’t charge nearly enough in subscription prices to cover the cost of print and production.
2___More End of An Era Stuff: Martha Stewart Living Going Out of Print
Martha Stewart Living to end print edition as Dotdash Meredith continues shift to digital — news.yahoo.com Dotdash Meredith has now announced plans to end print editions of seven titles.
'Martha Stewart Living' Ends 32-Year Run In Print 04/19/2022 — www.mediapost.com 'Martha Stewart Living' Ends 32-Year Run In Print - 04/19/2022
What does this mean? In the print world it means that we will be taking another 2 million copies out of print circulation. Of note, the latest AAM report showed that MS Living had a circulation of 2.073 million copies of which 113K were newsstand oriented. Looking back 10 years, the title has been remarkably stable in terms of circulation for the print and digital version. The circulation during the same time period in 2012 was 2.082 million copies of which 163K copies were newsstand oriented.
3___Medill Survey Shows Difficulty of Getting Some Local News Consumers to Pay for Content
Medill Survey Shows Difficulty of Getting Some Local News Consumers to Pay | Local News Initiative — localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu The diverse neighborhoods of Chicago’s South and West sides make a lot of news, and a survey of their residents has found intense interest in coverage of crime and other top issues – as long as it’s free.
Well, they did tell us that the internet was going to be free, didn't they?
Back in the dark ages, antennae TV news was free. People started to give up their local newspapers in the ’70’s and ’80’s because there was TV news and it was only a half hour and it was free. Then there was cable news which wasn’t free, but was packaged in with their cable subscription so it felt like it was free.
Now we have Facebook and other social platforms including the endless warnings about coyotes on Nextdoor. That also feels like it's free but of course it's not. Oddly enough we pay the internet provider to be the product the platforms sell to advertisers who pester us endlessly.
So why pay?
4___More Banned Books (Sigh...)
Opinion | 'And Tango Makes Three' authors: Here are other kids' books Florida should probably ban - The Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com
Plenty of children's books contain "gender identity" and "sexual orientation" if you think about it!
The authors of And Tango Make Three offer some comfort and assistance to Florida teachers trying to figure out the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The results are hilarious.
5___The Chicago Reader's Transition to Non-Profit is Delayed As Owners "Squabble"
Chicago Reader employees rally to save alternative newspaper as ownership squabble delays transition to nonprofit – Chicago Tribune — www.chicagotribune.com Chicago Reader employees organized a rally Thursday in front of a co-owner's Lakeview East home to “make some noise” and push him to let the alternative weekly transition to a nonprofit.
Future of the Chicago Reader in jeopardy - Axios Chicago — www.axios.com Newsroom staff is planning a protest near co-owners house this week.
There’s absolutely no reason that a non-profit Chicago Reader couldn’t survive and thrive in Chicago. Chicago and its suburbs are physically huge and chock full of a wide variety of communities, cultures and ethnicities. No one news organization can fulfill all of these needs.
After reading these articles, my head hurt. To think that in this day and age an organizations’ future could be held in the balance because someone’s feelings are hurt about an editorial decision (albeit not a great one)…and that neither side can agree on how many “Seats on a Board”…
Chicago needs the Reader. Chicago does not need a bunch of rich people with hurt feelings and a desire to control every aspect of communication.
___Your Moment of Magazine Zen is Brought to You By...
So, if you want a busy week, I hope you have a busy week. But not in the annoying, "Sigh...do I really have to do this?" kind of week.
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Have a great week!