It's Tuesday: Midway Through the Dog Days of Summer - Issue #54
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, we’re about midway through the “Dog Days of Summer”. The Almanac says the phrase originates from Ancient Greece and Rome when this time in the calendar reflected a period of extremely hot and humid weather coinciding with the rise of the Dog Star, Sirius.
The Almanac notes that in ancient times, this period of extreme heat and humidity often drove men and dogs mad from the weather.
Out here in the prairie by the lake, this is the time for completing the first half of the year’s AAM reports for a few clients. That means that despite many efforts to prep, I’m scrambling to pull together all the necessary documentation. On top of that we’re already looking at 2023 production schedules, 2023 promotional budgets, and reassessing what worked and what didn’t work so far this year. I've checked and it turns out that many of my colleagues in the magazine world are equally busy with plans for the coming new year.
So how do you cope with the heat, the humidity and with so much going on all at once?
In my case, I discovered that no amount of training and exercise was helping as much as it used to. So now I literally go to the dogs. When we moved back from the city to the suburbs, I became a volunteer at a nearby animal shelter and joined their dog walking and animal enrichment volunteers. We walk shelter dogs, manage their morning playgroups and help the professional staff when animals are taken out to off-site adoption promotions. Being a volunteer is a joyful experience. And for me, being amongst all of these wonderful animals (And some really great people) is a welcome respite from the stress and strains of 21st century magazine publishing.
What are you doing to blow off steam and confront the stress of the modern magazine economy?
So here's what I've been looking at this week:
1___John Warner: Parents must stop harassing librarians who are just doing their jobs
Biblioracle: Parents must stop harassing librarians who are just doing their jobs — www.chicagotribune.com Some parents are accusing librarians of actively promoting pedophilia and then harassing them for nothing more than doing their jobs.
This article from the Chicago Tribune's book editor, John Warner, dovetails nicely with the post in last week's newsletter about the parent who's trying to get some books in his child's school library removed for being "pornographic."
I like Warner's point that we need to stop framing this as a "culture war" and more as the power struggle that it is.
2___Yankee Publishing Now 100% Employee Owned
Yankee Publishing Sells Shares, Is Now 100% Employee-Owned 07/11/2022 — www.mediapost.com Yankee Publishing Sells Shares, Is Now 100% Employee-Owned - 07/11/2022
I'm a huge fan of ESOP programs in theory. Although in practice, sometimes they are not that different from when companies get spun off and larded up with debt. There don't seem to be a lot of details about how this is structured, but let's hope that the Yankee employees have some say in how their company is managed and that their stock will actually be of value to them.
3___The Atlantic digitizes all of their publications
The Atlantic Digitizes Its 165-Year-Old Archive, Unlocking Potential IP — www.adweek.com The new material technically spans a time period of 133 years, said editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
One of the promises of a digitized world is that we can now collect and preserve all of our documents from the past, presuming, of course, that future computer programs can read past computer documents. Hint: They often can't.
Despite that, this is exciting stuff because The Atlantic is one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the country, their contribution to journalism is enormous, and their digitized archives look impressively deep.
4___The Rise of Local Media Barons
The Rise of the Large Regional Newspaper Barons | Local News Initiative During the heyday of print newspapers, big-shot media moguls were practically kingmakers, using their resources to shape public opinion about everything from elections to wars.
There are two interesting parts to this story, at least as far as I am concerned. As the article mentions: While we are losing many local newspapers, we still see a growing concentration and growth of regional publishers. They're picking up small and medium sized newspapers across the country. It makes sense, even as an industry contracts, there’s an opportunity to make money by buying existing businesses.
While the other item is not covered in the story, about 10 minutes of light googling confirmed for me an interesting side note to the story. As these “local media barons” snatch up their local newspapers, they are often also acquiring the local city magazine that are also owned by the newspaper.
5___FCC Chair wants to redefine broadband as 100 Mbps
FCC Chair Wants To Redefine Broadband As 100 Mbps 07/18/2022 — www.mediapost.com FCC Chair Wants To Redefine Broadband As 100 Mbps - 07/18/2022
This is important news and it is also good news. The current standard of 25/3 is clearly too slow for the needs of today's businesses. Even in my small home office, there's no way that download/upload speed would work.
Of equal importance, the chair is suggesting that a new national goal be set of a minimum 1 gigabit-per-second downloads and 500 megabit-per-second uploads for the future.
Now if the FCC would do something about the stranglehold ISPs and cable companies have on our access to the web...
For Your Moment of Magazine Zen...
Time to scoot down the hall, slink into the break room and grab that fourth cup of coffee. You've got emails to respond to!
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Like I said, it’s Tuesday. It's July. It's hot out there. Crank up the A/C, put on a sweater and get back at it!
I hope you have a great week.