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 fifth 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.

65. “I really can’t imagine Real Simple without a print product. I mean, we are thrilled to see the growth that we’ve experienced in other areas, but I can’t imagine us never being a magazine. And I happen to know that you define a magazine as something that exists on paper.” Kristin van Ogtrop, Editor-in-Chief, Real Simple magazine.

66. “When we first put up the website for GX, I had a Mom call me and she said, hey, can you print this story, because I want to keep it. So, I printed it out for her on nice paper and mail it to her. I printed it and mailed it to her and she told me she ended up framing it. People want to physically hold it; they want to see it and share it that way. It legitimizes everything when it’s in print.” Keith Kawasaki, Vice President, Client Services, iostudio.

67. “It is such a beautiful print product and I think to be inspired to make real changes in your life, and some of them may be small, such as a lip gloss that’s moisturizing, and some of them are big, like you’re going to think differently about your life, and then some are medium, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, but for those kinds of inspiring changes I think print is a great medium for them. It tells a story and it tells it so completely.” Laura Frerer-Schmidt, Publisher, Women’s Health magazine.

68. “The whole idea of this one-to-one; she (Helen Gurley Brown) used to say that she wanted to have a one-to-one conversation with millions of women at the same time. So that whole idea of community, which is now what everyone is talking about, that’s something that Cosmo has always had. We’ve always said that we were the first interactive medium. Before there was an internet, there was Cosmo.” Donna Kalajian Lagani, Senior Vice President, Publishing Director & Chief Revenue Officer, Cosmopolitan magazine.

69. “Print is not dead for us; it’s thrilling. Of course, I hear it in other magazines and it scares me to death because I’m such an old print horse that I never want it to go away. And so it’s really exciting for me to be at a magazine where there’s never talk of not doing print anymore. Yes, it’s doing well.” Diane Anderson-Minshall, Editor-in-Chief, Plus magazine.

70. “When I’ve worked at legacy publications, we’d create this content that was basically designed to be an adjacency to advertising. Whatever, fine. Then the advertising disappears. Advertising definitely comes and goes; you have to make sure that you have a product at the end of the day that your readers actually care about, because the advertising dollar today will disappear tomorrow.” Adi Ignatius, Editor-in-Chief, Harvard Business Review magazine.

71. “By creating My Smart Newspaper, with its 16 pages, the reader will be able to spend 10 or 15 minutes to get a summary of everything that’s in the market today through a small, compact newspaper, and at the same time has the feel and look that only print can deliver. You are getting all the information with no waste whatsoever. No waste in paper and no waste of the readers time… it is a win-win situation.” Faisal Salem Bin Haider, CEO, Printing & Distribution Sector, Dubai Media Inc.

72. I’m very excited about this part of our business. I was brought up in print and I do believe that it’s the role of print and how it plays in the overall world of our media. You see it as much as I do; now we’re seeing digital-only plays that want to get into the print business and so, isn’t it right that we should actually start with the median and grow it the other way? That’s where I see the future going, creating content that can be deeper and articulated in different ways in the world of publishing.” Steve Giannetti, Publisher, Smithsonian Journeys magazine.

73. “I believe very much in the importance of the commercial side. I don’t feel successful without being successful.” Victoria Pope, Editor-in-Chief, Smithsonian Journeys magazine.

74. “There is something very particular about the act of physically holding a magazine in one’s hand and flipping through it slowly, then placing it aside onto your nightstand or coffee table or kitchen counter and returning to that same thing that you placed aside an hour later or even a few days later. The way that our minds and indeed our bodies interact with printed matter, it’s simply not the same.” James Oseland, Editor-in-Chief, Organic Life magazine.

75. “I think that the pendulum always swings back and forth and I think the pendulum, which had swung pretty much to digital, now may swing, while not all the way back, certainly somewhat toward starting the comeback a bit, because there is a recognition that audiences do like their magazine products.” Lewis DVorkin, Chief Product Officer, Forbes magazine.

76. “People think that print has gone away because they don’t understand what they’re hearing about the decline of newsstand sales. But newsstand is only a small portion of magazines and the idea that, in the case of Parents and American Baby, thousands of them a day are raising their hands and inviting print products into their home, which to me says this is still a really robust area.” Dana Points, Editor-in-Chief & Content Director, Parents group, Meredith.

77. “And these tributaries (collector’s editions) are how I think print will stay around because it’s specialized. I can go to any dot com or any digital platform and get all of my news for every facet of my life right then on the spot. But we don’t want to do that. We just want to do one very specific brand of news, for one very specific customer and that’s it.” Tony Romando, CEO & Co-founder, Topix Media Lab.

78. “We’re not surprised that digital brands are launching publishing products; it’s the most powerful level of engagement, whether it’s a book, newspaper, or a magazine; there is no higher level of engagement than when a consumer is reading a printed product. We’re in for the long-haul.” Scott Dickey, CEO, TEN (The Enthusiast Network).

79. “We will not pull the plug on the print edition. It does too well with advertisers; it does too well with people who like print, and not just people of a certain age, but across a whole stretch. So, I can’t foresee it.” Bruce Kelley, Editor-in-Chief, Prevention magazine.

80. “The number two media channel that the entire pharmaceutical industry spends in is print. Consumers are hungry for this information and they want to make great choices.” Lori Burgess, Publisher, Prevention magazine.

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