Mr. Magazine

In an article published in The New York Times on May 9, 2005 Janice Min, the editor in chief of US Weekly, justified the fact that her magazine paid $500,000 for the pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the beach together by telling the Times’ reporter Lia Miller “that every magazine was still looking for that one special photograph. ‘Usually the big-ticket photos involve a pregnancy, a wedding, a breakup or a hook-up.'” Well, last week OK Weekly landed such a picture of the pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears. Us Weekly, in this week’s issue, slams Jamie Lynn’s mother Lynne Spears for selling the story to OK Weekly. US Weekly goes on to write, “Lynne soon sought out OK! magazine, a struggling British-owned tabloid that pays generously for celeb interviews…” OK Weekly is now a struggling tabloid! OK Weekly, in fact has been growing in circulation in the United States and have published several editions world-wide. I, for one, do not agree with the concept of anyone been paid to be interviewed, but for the kettle (US Weekly) to call the pot (OK Weekly) black strikes me as funny to say the least. If Lynne Spears made the same offer to US Weekly, those same pictures would have appeared on the cover of US Weekly, and no other magazine would have attacked the rest of the magazines because they did not win the bidding. It is amazing what passes today as journalism; journalism with no profound impact on the life of any of the readers. Shame on all of us and on all of those who try to push this type of media as journalism.

The Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy tackles this issue on his blog and provides some explanations for all the numbers floating around, including my own numbers. The Numbers Guy Carl Bialik starts his blog stating, “If you want to know how many magazines debuted in the U.S. this year, you have to start by answering the question: What is a magazine launch?” Click here to read his entire blog.

… And the baby here refers to both OK magazine and Britney Spears’ little sister Jamie Lynn. OK and Jamie Lynn were both born with silver spoons in their mouths and they were both in the shadows of other front runners, siblings or no siblings. With the latest “pregnancy” news both Jamie Lynn Spears and OK magazine landed a prime spot in the world of celebrity gossip. The pregnant teenager landed on the cover of OK magazine and together with her mom gave the magazine an exclusive interview. The rest of the media sadly jumped on the band wagon and spent hours reporting about the pregnancy and the exclusivity of the interview in OK magazine. What some may consider a great coup for OK magazine, I feel it is a sad day for a country where teen-age pregnancy has always been a problem. Rather than addressing the problem and the role and responsibilities of the parents, we are now celebrating kid pregnancies and referring to the pregnant teen as “the brave teenager.” Call me old-fashioned, but this is where I draw the line.

By the way, just in case you did not catch the irony behind the headline of this blog entry, “You’ve come a long way baby…” Here’s a brief explanation, it was the headline for an ad for a brand of cigarettes aimed at women. Well, now you know the rest of that story… need I say more!

“So, how is the magazine business?” a friend whom I have not seen for more than a year asked me. What do you tell someone who has not been on the scene for more than a year?“ Great! It has been great,” was my answer and I proceeded to tell him, in a true magazine fashion, what I consider as my 7 great magazine moments of 2007:

1. The launch of Condé Nast Portfolio: It single handedly brought back the faith in new magazine launches from a major media company who still considers magazine business as its core business. Thank you S. I. Newhouse Jr., David Carey and Joanne Lipman.

2. The reinvention of Time magazine: The weekly has gone through a major reinvention bringing relevance and intelligence to its contents and readers. The new Time set the stage for changes at both Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. Thank you Richard Stengel and Edward McCarrick.

3. The creation of a new genre of man’s magazines: The launch of Outside’s Go and Men’s Health Living magazines created a new genre of man’s magazines that cater to non-woman related issues in a man’s life. Both magazines are catering to a new niche that has gone unfulfilled for years: travel that meets the needs of the active man and interior design and home that meets the needs of the affluent man. Thank you Larry Burke and David Zinczenko.

4. Giving a new meaning to Garden and Gun: Through the launch of the new regional magazine Garden & Gun the two terms bestowed a new meaning on both of the words. One no longer thinks gardening or guns when they hear the two words, rather they think “21st Century Southern America.” Thank you Rebecca Darwin and welcome Sid Evans.

5. The Week is not for sale: With the sale of all the U.S. properties, Dennis Publishing did not include The Week on its “For sale” announcement. Felix Dennis once told me that he is a poor consumer of popular media. “I watch no television, see no movies and couldn’t, quite frankly, care less about magazines, with the exception of The Week…”Thank you Felix Dennis.

6. The Mook, a new word in the magazine world: Monocle magazine launched in London and few other international cities at the same time, added a new word to the English language and gave a brand new meaning and respect to the world of book-a-zines: The Mook. A magazine that looks and feels like a book, but reads as a magazine with all new content and non of the recycled content book-a-zines accustomed us to see. Thank you Tyler Brulé.

7. The launch of Everywhere and the re-launch of JPG: Both magazines, published by 8020 Publishing, show that a partnership can exist between both technologies: paper and pixels. Just give to paper what is paper’s and to pixels what is pixels’. Thank you Paul Cloutier.

So here you have it, 7 great moments in the life of the magazine industry in 2007.I’m looking forward to a great 2008.All the best to all, and here’s for a great new year.

I recently gave a speech at the Paper and Pulp Products Council (PPPC) European Summit in Brussels, Belgium on the future of ink on paper and the magazine and newspaper’s future as we know it today. I noted that the problem is not with the medium but rather the problem is with the message. In fact, after further reflection and several visits with newspaper newsrooms both in the U.S. and in other parts of the world, I am more of the opinion now that the problem is rather with the newsroom also and not only with the message. In fact, I do not know if we can separate our message problems from our newsroom problems.
The majority of the newsrooms that I have visited are still operating in the same way they operated when I was working in a newsroom as if nothing has changed. Yes, we no longer use typewriters (we are talking 70s here) but we still have the beat system and the division of the newsroom between reporters, writers, editors and designers. The territorial divisions in the newspaper are still alive, well and kicking the newspaper to its grave. Try to tell the folks in the newsroom that the reporter from the city council beat needs to work with the reporter from the world beat and see what will happen. Try to tell the reporters to ignore yesterday’s news because their readers have already heard and seen the news and see their reaction. The newsroom has to go beyond the news and the reporters working there have to do the same.
As we move to adapt in this rapidly moving technology era, we need to make sure that our reporters and editors will focus their content on the right medium. That is why some forward thinking newspapers are moving more in the direction of content editors and directors rather than news editors.
I believe that we need to have two newsrooms in each paper, one to operate the on-line edition which will continue to operate like the old fashioned newsroom with beat reporters whose sole job is to chase and report the news (from their virtual office to the web directly) and a contents-room for journalists who are going to stop the news-race and rather focus on analyzing and studying the news in order to create information out of the news as the editor-in-chief of the Dutch newspaper nrc•next Hans Nijenhuis likes to say, “News is free, but information is not.” He told Monocle magazine last month, “We feel that Next is actually a daily magazine. Traditional papers are done page by page and sent off to the press to be put together. At Next we put all the pages on the floor at 18:00 and see how it works as a whole…”
The technology of paper (and yes paper is a technology for those who tend to forget that) may no longer be the best home for most of the news, but it sure IS the best technology to provide the information that is needed to link our yesterday with our tomorrow. The good paper technology still provides its customers with a “beyond the news” detailed information that as Bruce Brandfon, the publisher of Scientific American says “will have a profound impact” on its users. We must keep that in mind and start to implement that profound impact in our newsrooms.
Change should start from within, or the prophets of doom and gloom will continue to predict the demise of the newspapers. A paper (notice that I did not use newspaper) must be that, a paper that offers unique journalism that will have that profound impact on the lives of its readers whether political, culture, financial, or even entertainment and lifestyle (Such as in the British paper The Independent). Profound is the key for a successful journalism paper in this century and beyond. The fun thing about the aforementioned is that it is not new. The necessity of journalism is as important today as it has ever been. The only change is in the way journalism is delivered. The paper technology is great for some journalism and the web technology is great for some other journalism. The key is to change and adapt. Change must come from the inside, inside the newsroom, otherwise, newspapers will be committing mass suicide in this country and their numbers will continue to drop. If your newspaper is not necessary and sufficient you can start counting the days to the grave, and if you are still talking about the need to change, IT IS TOO LATE.
The papers in this country can still have a great future if we free the newsroom and the way we do business in the newsrooms. Trimming the staff, redesigning the paper and closing national and overseas offices are nothing but band-aids on a major, deep cut that will not help the healing process. Now is the time to hit the brakes and rethink our entire strategy of the future. A strategy that should begin today and it should begin from within the newsroom.