Mr. Magazine

A Mr. Magazine™ “Quotable” Retrospective…

Celebrate Magazines Celebrate Print. The theme for ACT 6 Experience that takes place April 20 to 22, 2016. Painting by and © Laura McCrory.
For information about the ACT 6 Experience email me at samir.husni@gmail.com

I have been a firm believer in print and its power even when many doubted its future and even its role in today’s media world. I have been quoted as saying, “As long as we have human beings, we will have print.” And that quote stands firm and true as we enter into a brand New Year.

Of course, I’m not oblivious to the fact that we live in a digital age…just check the many devices you and I are using on a daily basis, even the platform that you’re reading this on now as we connect. Yet that did not deter my belief in the role and future of print. Nor, will it ever.

However, as an academic and a professor of journalism, I’d rather share with you what others from the field say about the future and the role of print in today’s media world and tomorrow’s; that way it isn’t just my word you’re hearing and reading. Never would I yearn to be lumped in with others who pontificate to high heaven with their opinions and speculations for the condition of magazines and magazine media; be it print or digital or any other platform that may arise before I can finish writing this. The blah-blah-blah disease spreads pretty fast on its own, without any help from Mr. Magazine™

And so without any further ado, here is the third installment of the 136 quotes (in random order) that Mr. Magazine™ has accumulated over the last two years through the wonderfully informative conversations I have had with the game changers and the passionate entrepreneurs in the magazine industry.

33. “I believe that you have to be the reader. You can’t try and force the reader to be you. So you have to give them what they want and understand it emotionally, understand the voice and the need.” Ellen Levine, Editorial Director, Hearst Magazines.

34. “The whole world doesn’t tip over to online or digital and there’s something about holding that magazine with the content and the experience you have with it in your hands that clearly consumers still enjoy.” Debra Janssen, President & CEO, CDS Global.

35. “I think that it would be Pollyannaish to say that print will never disappear. I do think that someday print will not be around, but I’ll have to say that it’s much farther into the future than many of us were talking about four years ago. And I don’t see it coming in the near future at all. Print is stronger than ever.” Bob Cohn, Co-President & COO, The Atlantic magazine.

36. “Print is coming back. It has credibility and it’s deeper; it just has so many attributes to it that the digital world lacks.” Greg Sullivan, Co-Founder and CEO, Afar Media.

37. “There’s something people like, whether you’re fifteen or fifty, about the printed product. You don’t have to charge it, no worries if it gets sandy or wet at the beach; you don’t panic if you leave it on a plane and that’s not changing. I don’t think digital will ever fully replace that.” Jason Wagenheim, Publisher, Teen Vogue magazine.

38. “I think there is an incorrect belief that younger readers aren’t reading print. And I think that belief has largely been because so many people are watching the shifts in the industry that are happening that have made it more challenging for some of the huge mass market titles to be successful in the same way they were in the past.” Will Pearson, Co-founder, Mental Floss magazine.

39. “It’s not one or the other. True success lies in the complimentary nature of digital and print, this is where we see customers deliver and increase their business and brand value.” Roel-Jan Mouw, CEO, WoodWing software.

40. “I’m fully behind magazines and magazines have lived through television, they have lived through radio and they’ll live through the Internet, but we have to adapt and make our magazines a little bit easier to read, such as with smaller stories.” Jeff Greif, Publisher, Chilled magazine.

41. “I don’t think digital will be the demise of print at all; in fact, I don’t know why we keep talking about the death of print because I don’t think it’s happening.” Bruce Sherbow, Senior Vice President, Penny Publications.

42. “I absolutely think that the social conscience of Marie Claire is as important today as it was 20 years ago. And I believe that has a great deal to do with our present success.” Anne Fulenwider, Editor-in-Chief, Marie Claire magazine.

43. “I’ve been very clear; I think print is around for the next 25 years. Print will be around for a long time. It’s in a slow decline. There’s always going to be room for someone to sit down with a magazine on a cozy afternoon and read a great magazine. That is always going to go on.” Joe Ripp, CEO & Chairman, Time Inc.

44. “High Times is not a magazine; it has always been a cause from the beginning. It was founded by Tom King Forcade, who was part of the Underground Press Syndicate. His goal from the very beginning was the legalization of marijuana and this was 40 years ago.” Mary McEvoy, Publisher, High Times magazine.

45. “I think the biggest challenge is going to be to grow print, not just maintain it. This idea of maintaining print or maintaining a slow decline; no, I’m not down with that. I think it’s going to be about growing our print audience and growing our digital audience.” Hunter Lewis, Editor-in-Chief, Cooking Light magazine.

46. “The Internet and print are not in competition and the way we work here at The Fader is when we’re pitching stories for web or for the print magazine, we do it in the same way.” Naomi Zeichner, Editor-in-Chief, The Fader magazine.

47. “A lot of the changes were designed to do two things: create a contemporary magazine, because readers are used to getting their information from a variety of media, particularly from contemporary, sophisticated magazines and we wanted to make our mission very obvious and clear.” Ellen Kampinsky, Editor-in-Chief, Consumer Reports magazine.

48. “What this does is make us the first-ever media to capture as an industry, basically the cross-platform demand by brand. No other industry does this.” Mary Berner, President & CEO, MPA (The Association of Magazine Media).

Stay tuned for Part IV of the Mr. Magazine™ “Quotable” Retrospective…