Mr. Magazine

Four out of the top five magazine titles with the highest ratio of subscription price versus newsstand cover price are found to be publications of the Bauer Publishing company. A comparison of magazine newsstand cover prices and the “average price” the publisher is selling a subscription copy for, was completed by Harrington Associates, publisher of The New Single Copy. The list (Published in the June 18 issue of The New Single Copy newsletter) of major titles with the highest ratio is dominated by the titles of Bauer Publishing. “The company’s weeklies, Life & Style, Woman’s World, and In Touch, are the only magazines combining average newsstand sales of more than 500,000 with ratios of over 70%,” Harrington’s study found. “A fourth Bauer title, the monthly First for Women, is next on the list with a 58.3% ratio.” Time Inc.’s People magazine rounds up the top five. It should be noted that Bauer is launching another weekly this coming September, Cocktail Weekly which may end up rounding all top five titles in John Harrington’s next year’s study. Those of you who may recall my call for bold steps at the newsstands two weeks ago (read them here), can see why Bauer Publishing is an excellent example of the “right way to handle magazines and their audiences.” I am sure that there is more than one lesson to learn here, but is anyone listening?

I do not know why the more I think about my interview with ABC News on the so called “Celebrity journalism” I am reminded of Marx’s famous quote on Religion. He wrote, “Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze…” I, for one, do not agree with his definition of religion, but what if we replaced the word “Religion” with the words “Celebrity and Gossip?” I think his quote will fit much more today’s society and marketplace. As long as I have the opportunity to teach journalism, this profession will remain to me a profession that must answer the simple question of What Is In It For Me? That ME means my life, my home, my money, my country, my soldiers, etc…but NOT some Hollywood created celebrities (here today, in jail tomorrow and gone the day after)…there is nothing in them for me. They have become the opium for our people. What a sad commentary on events (and our society) when a dead celebrity occupies not twice or thrice, but more than hundred times the coverage on cable television news while the death of our soldiers fighting in Iraq were not worthy but a ticker line on the bottom of the screen. Please do not misunderstand me, I love all kind of magazines including the gossip ones. But please do not treat them as Journalism. They are not. In fact you will be doing a disservice to real journalism if we equate the death of Anna Nicole Smith with the death of our soldiers in Iraq, or if we equate the imprisonment of Paris Hilton to that of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

That is the number of covers I was able to find, so far, from my hunt to locate all 20 covers of the July 2007 of Vanity Fair’s Bono guest-edited issue. The special issue on Africa carries 20 “historic covers photographed by Annie Leibovitz.” You can see the covers at Vanity Fair’s web site here, but there is nothing like having all the copies of the magazine covering your coffee table at home or at the office to show the power of the visual impact of print. Wish me luck on my hunt, ( missing the Buffett, Gates and Jay-Z covers) because I want my Vanity Fair puzzle to be complete on my coffee table. Every time I think Vanity Fair cannot be anymore innovative, the editors surprise me one more time… Another job well done and another reason to believe that the future of print, and journalism with a purpose, is well, alive and kicking. Thank you Graydon Carter, thank you Bono and thank you Annie Leibovitz.

Who said you can’t tell a magazine by its tag-line? Well, I can. Good’s tag-line reads, “Good is for people who give a damn. It’s an entertaining magazine about things that matter.” Check Good here. The Believer’s tag-line, or so to speak, reads, “The Believer is printed on heavy stock paper and is almost entirely awesome.” Check The Believer here. The only two words that I will change in those tag-lines are “entertaining” in Good and “almost” in The Believer. Good is way beyond entertaining. It is one of the best magazines that I have seen in a long long time that Has a Purpose. In fact it reminds me of being similar to Highlights magazine with its famous 60 plus years tag-line Fun with Purpose. The only difference, Good is for Adults. Adults who want to know more than what Brit, Brad, Jan, etc. are doing and do not really care to treat them as newsworthy or as a beat (in journalistic terms) to follow and report on. Good is Journalism with a Purpose. The Believer is not almost awesome. It IS. From the pages that you read to the music that you hear. The current issue is their special music issue and it is worth every penny from the $10 cover price. To use the words of Good, pick up those two magazines today and act as if you give a damn about the future of journalism and magazines in this country…better yet, act as if you give a damn about the future of our country. Act now.