Archive for the &;death-of-magazines&; Category
« Older Entries
LA Times Brings BackTV Listings
June 11, 2010
Gary Scott reports that the LA Times, after three years, is actually bringing back the Television Times weekly listing section. Cutting it was yet another bad decision for the Times, as with a universe of hundreds of channels broadcasting 24 hours a day, (and no Cable Guide for your $100 a month) one has little ability to determine what one wants to watch or record days ahead.
The Times seems to have realized that telling readers to create and print out their own listings was a non-starter.
The impenetrable prose of the press release claims that starting June 13, in a &;tiered roll out,&;&;newstand and eventually subscription readers (wrong order of things, Times) will get a &;44-page tabloid section&;with 24-hour daily grid listings spanning morning, afternoon, primetime and late-night programming, four pages of alphabetized TV/cable/satellite movie listings, a full-page cover story, a TV-related crossword puzzle, episode highlights and synopses, and a dedicated sports programming page.&;
Did they admit they made a mistake when they killed the section 3 years ago and left thousands of angry subscribers? Nah&;
But then, the barely alive print TV Guide apparently had to be shamed into putting back the daytime (&;I want my stories!&;) listings, so stupidity loves company.
Tags:LA-Times, TV-Guide, TV-listings Posted in death-of-magazines, death-of-newspapers, Television | Leave a Comment &;
The Problem(s)with Newsweek
May 14, 2010
Newsweek has changed. Mostly, they&;ve given up on covering news, and now just have long, occasionally reported, think and profile pieces.
Now they&;re getting unwanted publicity for being the news, not reporting it. One of their writers says being gay and out is a career killer for actors, as no one will buy a gay or lesbian making out with someone of the opposite sex. Entertainment Weekly (which won&;t admit that it&;s slagging a competitor) describes it as a journey &;back to 1952.&; Indeed, when I was at the Enquirer, we played ball with the likes of Rock Hudson to buttress his straight reputation for our {largely female} readers and his {largely female} fans. But as Lily Tomlin once said, you don&;t have to be straight to play straight.
On the other hand, another Newsweek writer says we should stop talking about Elena Kagan&;s sexuality. Back to the 50&;s, indeed.
And sadly, that&;s their audience. I didn&;t buy my Newsweek, get it from the library or read it at a newsstand (another dying breed.) Instead, my 82-year old mother insisted on giving her subscription copy to me.
Their advertising problems track their demographics.
I counted 12.5 pages of advertising in the comic book-sized (not graphic novel sized) 56 page Newsweek (60 pages if you count the covers) of May 3. Of that, the msnbc.com ad was obviously a house ad, my guess is the ABC Good Morning America ad was a trade-out (perhaps they use Newsweek reporters or give Newsweek a shout-out) and the half-page SPDR/WSJ ad was probably one too. So we&;re left with 10 pages of advertising in a 60 page magazine.
That&;s weak. The type of advertising is even weaker; would anyone under 40 &;brew&; up a cup of Folger&;s instant coffee?
It&;s no wonder that this once multi-million seller is for sale. Each magazine&;s death diminishes me, to paraphrase John Donne, but when it goes, people won&;t miss it very much. The 50&;s are long over, and the people who still remember them are going fast.
Tags:death-of-magazines, Newsweek Posted in death-of-magazines, Newsweek | Leave a Comment &;
Reporter Self-Censored TigerWoods Story
May 4, 2010
Reporters these days are often accused of being &;stenographers&;. It&;s a dying art but a good analogy; here it means just taking down verbatim what a source and his handlers have to say.
Actual &;reporting&; (the kind of stuff the Enquirer did with John Edwards) doesn&;t come into the picture. The big fear is loss of access&;getting kicked out of the White House press room, the campaign bus, the locker room, the gravy train.
People Magazine reporter Steve Helling is a case (or coward) in point. As the Daily News quotes him, &;Over the years, I had heard rumors of Tiger&;s partying &; drunken nights at the clubs, dirty dancing with other women, phone numbers slipped to pretty blonds &; but I didn&;t follow up on the tips,&; the, er, reporter admits&;Helling didn&;t want to be cut off from the golden golfer. &;Negative coverage of Tiger &; or even positive coverage that wasn&;t approved and micromanaged &; would often result in swift, permanent excommunication from the Tiger Woods camp,&; he writes. &;It was in everyone&;s best interest to sweep the rumors under the rug.&;
But don&;t feel too bad for Helling&;he got to cash in with a new book on Tiger and his skanks. Just another example of why they call it &;content&; and page view bait now, instead of news.
Tags:death-of-journalism, John-Edwards, National-Enquirer, People-Magazine, Tiger-Woods Posted in death-of-journalism, death-of-magazines, tabloid-journalism, Uncategorized | 1 Comment &;
New Media Publishersas Scum
April 29, 2010
The publisher-writer relationship has always been loaded with antagonism. Publishers think writers are greedy, flaky, unable to understand assignments (or deadlines) and above all, lazy. Writers think publishers are exploitative. As my father-in-law (a publisher of what were called &;pennysavers&;) used to say, &;Writers are a dime a dozen.&; Or as the publisher of a marijuana publication put it, &;You&;re just a writer.&;
Unfortunately, in the world of the Internet and new media, the rapacious nature of publishers is more true now than ever. Now even once-respected news organizations are SYSTEMATICALLY devaluing the worth of a writer&;s work. &;More major media companies are looking for ways to find cheap content&;Thomson Reuters, Cox Newspapers and Hachette Filipacchi have run articles supplied by Associated Content, one of several companies, such as Demand Media and AOL&;s SEED, that mines reporting from masses of freelancers for as little as $5 a story,&; notes AdAge.
Five dollars a story! As a writer I&;ve been paid a dollar a word, sometimes more. Even at 50 cents a word, writers weren&;t getting rich. I used to say that if you wrote two 500 word stories a week, at 50 cents a word, at the end of the year you&;d have made $26,000.
These shameful &;partnerships&; in devaluing the contribution of the writer (content creator) can be blamed on exploitative new media &;publishers&; like Associated Content&;s Patrick Keane. And indeed, note this loathesome comment, &;The evolution of the content cycle has cheapened,&; said Associated&;s CEO Keane.
But just as much blame attaches to editors who should (and do) know better, as in Reuters publishing Associated stories on the economy or &;USA Today&;s recent deal with Demand Media, which is using its network of freelancers to supply pieces for a new Travel Tips section on USA Today&;s website.&; Particularly craven is Keith McAllister, global online editor for Thomson Reuters. &;This was not a business decision, but entirely an editorial one,&; said McAllister. &;We want to fill out the online offering as much as possible. We&;re building Thomson Reuters to be a content candy store.&;
He should have said &;We&;re building Thomson Reuters on the backs of less-than-minimum-wage-paid-freelancers to be a content candy story.&;
The AdAge &;trend&; story notes, &;Associated Content boasts more than 350,000 freelance contributors who have supplied more than 2 million articles. Associated pays its contributors anywhere from $5 to $30 per article, sometimes upfront &; and in some cases pays a performance fee of up to $2 for every 1,000 impressions the story generates within Associated Content&;s site. ..anywhere from $75 to $120 per article. Full-time staffers or even traditional freelancers working directly with publishers cost considerably more.&;
Yes, perhaps even a living wage.
Patrick Keane
Tags:AdAge, AOL-SEED, Associated-Content, exploitation-of-writers, freelancers-devalued Posted in death-of-journalism, death-of-magazines, death-of-newspapers, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
Newsweek isPathetic
February 24, 2010
Newsweek can&;t bring itself to call Joseph Stack, the murderer who crashed his plane into a government office in Austin, Texas and killed a decorated veteran, a terrorist. Their internal debate is here. Managing Editor Kathy Jones: &;Here is my handy guide:
Lone wolfish American attacker who sees gov&;t as threat to personal freedom: bomber, tax protester, survivalist, separatist
Group of Americans bombing/kidnapping to protest U.S. policies on war/poverty/personal freedom/ &; radical left-wing movement, right-wing separatists
All foreign groups or foreign individuals bombing/shooting to protest American gov&;t: terrorists.&;
As Glenn Greenwald puts it, &;So according to Newsweek&;s Managing Editor, only a foreigner who &;protests the American government&; can be a Terrorist. Americans cannot be. &;
If you indiscriminantly murder (or attempt to murder) innocent people you don&;t know in the service of your ideology, you are a terrorist. This includes Timothy McVeigh and partners in crime, Major Hasan, Theodore Kaczynski, and the scumbag who shot two people to death at LAX in 2002 that the FBI still refuses to call terrorism. And Joseph Stack.
Tags:Newsweek, Newsweek-pathetic, terrorism, terrorism-in-the-U.S. Posted in death-of-journalism, death-of-magazines, Newsweek | Leave a Comment &;
Playboy: Bring on the RealGirls!
December 18, 2009
So the Playboy sale has fallen through, largely because of Hugh Hefner&;s insistence on living at the Mansion until his death.
Sad, but even incoherent and out-of-date as it is, this great American brand can still be saved. I&;d love to consult on it or edit the new version, but I&;ll provide the first of my modest proposals for free:
Bring on the real girls!
Yes, I understand that Playboy is supposed to be full of fantasy females as part of its quaint &;Playboy philosophy,&; which philosopher-king Hefner says &;is very, very connected to the American dream&;that we indeed did and do own our own minds and bodies.&;
But right now, the girls have been completely Barbi-cized, between the plastics surgeon&;s knife and sacks o&; saleen, the airbrush and the aerobics and the soft-focus photography. Fake boobs, fake girls.
Instead, why not make it, at least partly, an instruction manual for the impressionable male? Maybe some girls are a bit chubby, others a little nosy, hairy or otherwise quirky. For when the one-hand reader of today&;s magazine (and website) encounters a real girl, they won&;t look like this&;especially down there.
Tags:fake-girls, Hugh-Hefner, Playboy, Playboy-sale-fails Posted in death-of-magazines, Men's Magazines, Playboy, Uncategorized | 1 Comment &;
Magazine Death List from AdAge
November 10, 2009
Ad Age recently updated its magazine death list, and from the point of view of a reader, freelance writer and technologist, it&;s pretty sobering.
As a continuing trend, it&;s not a surprise, but the casualties are adding up, as Gourmet joins Vibe, PC Magazine, (which once sent my old publication, PC LapTop, a threatening letter for putting &;PC&; in a red box on the cover) Portfolio, Blender, Electronic Gaming, even Nickelodeon&;which I subscribed to for my son.
Doesn&;t anyone read anymore? Or at least look at the pretty pictures?
I used to envy people like Rich Stengel, who I knew a little at Princeton, with high-powered publishing careers. This is why I no longer envy Rich.
I had to laugh when I saw Forbes current cover story on AT&T and Verizon quaking in their boots about free phone calls. Meanwhile Forbes can&;t admit how scared it is about free content on the Internet, that means no one has to buy a magazine.
Business magazines in general are dying, not just because of the economy and the &;secular decline&; of publishing and journalism, but because the hero worship of those with feet of clay has gone away. As David Carr puts it, it&;s no longer about &;the shiny, happy people striding boldly across the pages of magazines with names like Fortune, Money, Fast Company and Wired&;nobody is going to read, let alone aspire to, magazines called Middled, Outsourced, Left Behind and Clobbered.&;
For writers (and others) as my friend Cliff Roth says, as long as what you do can&;t be replaced by user-generated content (UGCX) on the Internet, you&;re golden.
Tags:Cliff-Roth, death-of-magazines, Forbes, PC-Magazine, UGX, Vibe Posted in death-of-magazines | Leave a Comment &;
Columbia Cuts Environmental JournalismProgram
October 21, 2009
Is the force of gravity finally hitting journalism schools? Unbelievably, as newspapers and magazines make cut after cut (incidentally also hurting freelancers like me) journalism school enrollment keeps going up.
I understand the romance of journalism, but what are these people thinking?
Now one of these pricey programs has bitten the dust. The Columbia School of Journalism announced the &;suspension&; of the two-year, $89,000 environmental journalism program. The program directors &;cited falling employment in the field, the rising costs of education, and a lack of financial aid for students.&;
The program actually sounds quite valuable, offering graduates two master&;s degrees, one in environmental science, the other in journalism. These would be ideal tools to investigate critical issues of our time, like global warming, carbon emissions, rainforest deforestation, the decline of the fisheries and the persistence of radiation from the Cold War, just to name some &;top of the head&; topics. Graduates could also take on the appalling anti-science movement of groups like the anti-vaccination crowd.
Unfortunately, in the Darwinian struggle for news outlets to survive, only two of 9 recent program graduates have gotten journalism jobs. Meanwhile, &;many newspapers with reputations for strong coverage&;from the Sacramento Bee to the Columbus Dispatch, have let go of talented specialists.&; Of course, if Rush Limbaugh had his way, there might be an opening at the New York Times.
Tags:anti-vaxers, environmental-journalism, journalism-schools, New-York-Times, Rush-Limbaugh Posted in death-of-magazines, death-of-newspapers, investigative-journalism, Journalism | Leave a Comment &;
Playboy Lied About MargeSimpson
October 20, 2009
Save your pennies at the newsstand, if you can find one. Marge is not on the cover of my subscription copy of the November issue. Pneumatic Alina Puscau is, in leather.
Only Marge&;s name is on the cover of my copy, despite this publicity shot.
She&;s inside, posed rather chastely in nylons and garters, and in the fake centerfold, posed with the inevitable stack &;o donuts.
Her turnoffs: Slim men who work out regularly and take care of their bodies&;
My turnoffs: Dying magazines that don&;t tell the truth in their publicity stunts, relentless cross-promotion with an equally aging TV show (&;Watch The Devil Wears Nada, Sunday November 15!&;), credulous news outlets that will print anything.
Tags:Alina-Puscau, death-of-magazines, Marge-Simpson-nude, Playboy Posted in death-of-magazines, publicity-stunts, Secrets of Men's Magazines, Sex and Society, Simpsons | Leave a Comment &;
Life Magazine Visions ofYesterday
May 27, 2009
Cleaning my office, I&;m slowly going through a mound of obsolete papers (aren&;t they all obsolete?), my very own time capsule.
The cover is gone, but it&;s instructive to look at a 1989 Life magazine. Although the theme is &;Visions of Tomorrow&;, it tells much more about yesterday.
First, there was a Life magazine. It&;s had many incarnations, but I don&;t see it coming back no more. Maybe on the Web&;but that&;s not the same thing, is it?
Second, it was a time of abundance; the magazine was printed in full color, 12&; x 10&; format, and the issue was nearly a half inch thick. Four pages of Oldsmobile ads helped make it possible.
Third, they were right about many things, such as &;replaceable you&;, on switching body parts, and noting &;drivers will avoid gridlock by checking their routes on a computer&;dashobard navigation system&;&; There&;s the usual prediction that tourists can book flights to Mars (this time by 2050).
What they predicted: the death of typewriters.
What they didnt&; predict: a future without Life Magazine. and probably the death of all magazines.
Tags:death-of-magazines, death-of-print, futurism, Life-magazine Posted in death-of-magazines | Leave a Comment &;
« Older Entries