Archive for May, 2009
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Playboy ExperiencesShrinkage
May 13, 2009
Blog readers know I have an ambivalent relationship with Playboy, the magazine that no longer knows who it is. It reported today it lost money, which in the real world means losing readers and advertisers. If you can&;t make money selling sex anymore, you&;re really in trouble.
The magazine has already been cut in size, both page count and in the smaller, thinner paperstock with pages that stick together on their own.
Now it&;s being cut in frequency, with the July and August issues combined &;in a move it says could be a precursor to a permanent curtailing of frequency.&; More good news for readers; when they raise the price to $5.99 an issue, you&;ll be paying more for less.
The Playboy &;empire&; tries to minimize the magazine&;s importance, saying it compresises &;less than a quarter&; of the company&;s revenues.
Playboy needs truck balls. It needs to get more outrageous and pneumatic and bodacious like Pamela Anderson&;not less.
Tags:death-of-magazines, Pamela-Anderson, Playboy Posted in Secrets of Men's Magazines, Sex and Society | Leave a Comment &;
The Missing Marines ofTarawa
May 12, 2009
The Princeton Alumni Weekly just published my cover story &;Issue in Doubt.&;
It&;s about how the U.S. military lost track of hundreds of Marines killed at Tarawa in World War II, including Medal of Honor winner and former Princeton student Alexander Bonnyman&;and how despite the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), whose motto is: “Until they are home&;, depressing political considerations usually mean that the search for Vietnam-era remains get priority over missing WWII or Korean vets.
Due partly to battle conditions, but largely to a series of screw-ups during and after the war, only 49% of the 1000 Marines killed over three days in November 1943 were ever found and repatriated to the U.S.
Can Bonnyman and the other &;missing&; Marines be found and returned to their families? I don&;t know&;but I do think the U.S. owes them a better effort.
Twelve-year-old Fran Bonnyman accepts the Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to her father, Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr. ’32, from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal ’15 in 1947.
Tags:government-coverup, Michael-Goldstein, missing-Marines, Princeton, Tarawa Posted in investigative-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
Bristol Palin: Do As I Say, Not As IDo
May 7, 2009
Somehow, Bristol Palin has become a spokesperson for teenage abstinence on behalf of a foundation started by the owner of Candies shoes for teenage girls. And I&;ll bet you didn&;t know that today, May 6, 2009, was National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (apparently by talking about it.)
Give Palin a little credit for at least addressing the inevitable charge of hypocrite.
&;&;Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only &; 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy&;if I can prevent even one girl from getting pregnant, I will feel a sense of accomplishment,&; she said.
And one assumes she&;s getting paid as a spokesperson, so at least she won&;t be like OctoWelfareMom.
But my father was a smoker, two packs a day, and with love and irony, he would constantly lecture my brother and I about smoking. &;Do as I say, not as I do.&;
So it was only a miracle that we didn&;t become addicted and die of lung cancer like my father.
&;You did and you&;re telling me not to?&; will be the response of most teenagers to Bristol, who is certainly paying the price for doing what teenagers do. Her failed relationship and her child (at least no one calls it her &;shame&;) have been tabloid fodder for months. Meanwhile, college, career and marriage have all receded a little further towards the horizon for her.
My son and his girlfriend had an intimate relationship at Bristol and Levi&;s age, but that awkward talk about contraceptives seems to have had more of an impact than admonishments about abstinence.
Tags:Bristol-Palin, Sarah-Palin, teen-abstinence Posted in Sarah-Palin, tabloid-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
Technology Lifestyle MagsDisappearing
May 4, 2009
And a good thing, too. I have before me a copy of CE Lifestyles, the February 2005 issue. The cover photo is a bodacious babe smiling a come-hither smile at her digital-camera wielding boyfriend. To further convince the fickle consumer, the cover price reads $5.99 $1.99. Now apparently called First Glimpse, you can subscribe for just $29 a year.
For years, publishers thought the combination of fetishized cool consumer electronics and hot cover babe would turn people men onto the so-called &;CE Lifestyle.&;
Why do these publications never take off? Now, of course, advertising is a memory, as are freelance, photo and model budgets. But that&;s not the real reason.
A long time ago I went to a presentation by some of the editors of Entertainment Weekly. EW itself is in trouble now, but not because it didn&;t follow the editors advice. In terms of coverage, he said, &;Movies are best, then music and television. Then sports. Last is technology.&;
Tags:Consumer Electronics, death-of-magazines, technology-journalism Posted in 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, CES, technology-journalism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
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