I am holding in my hands a copy of Life magazine from March 26, 1925. Yes, you read that right, a copy of a magazine published 100 years ago. The magazine feels, looks, and reads like many magazines published today. A nice cover, good content, plenty of illustrations, and a promise for the future, “While there is Life There’s Hope.” And hope is what I see and feel every time I pick up a copy of a magazine from a century or two ago.
Print is permanent. A magazine, once printed, is permanent. You can’t change a thing, not even a comma. There is no backspace or delete button. What you see is what you get: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You can own it and you can proudly say it is mine. That sense of ownership satisfies the human need in all of us to own things, lots of things (Just look at your house or apartment and see how many things you have, even those you do not need).
Flipping through the pages of this issue of Life, I am transformed to a simpler, calmer world where, I can “select colors and upholstery,” for my “custom Cadillac,” or enjoy my Wrigley’s chewing gum “after every meal.”
I am also reading the prize winner’s answer to the question, “Is Democracy a Success?” H.W. Davis won the $50 prize for the following answer: “ Democracy is a rip-roaring success. If you don’t believe so, say out loud that it isn’t – and run for your life. Democracy pats the greatest number of people on the back and makes the most promises. Of course it seldom delivers. But what of that? We live and are made happy by promise, not performance.
And happiness is success, for all that anybody has been able to prove to the contrary. Ergo, democracy is a success.
There! The pup has his tail in his teeth.”
So, here you have it. I am reading and flipping the pages of a magazine from 100 years ago, exactly like I read and flip the pages of a magazine from March 26, 2025. I wonder if I can say the same thing about any of my digital devices? Heck, I can’t even use my camcorder from 20 years ago, yet I can look at my printed pictures from 50 years ago.
Long live print and long live permeance. Print will be here long after I am gone, the same it was here long before I was born.
One final note, there is nothing permanent about digital, even a PDF can be changed and altered. You can’t do that to a magazine. It is permanent.
Enough of that, I have some reading to do…the first issue of Art Lovers magazine from January 1925…To be continued.
PS: If you want to journey through thousands of magazines from yesteryears, check The Samir Husni’s Magazine Collection at my Alma Mater The University of Missouri-Columbia here.
When Brian Clarke, who uses the pseudonym name Les Toil, decided to major in art at the beginning of the 90s, he did not know he is majoring in a lost art. His love for art and his talents in illustrations were enough to provide him with a decent income to provide a good living.
However that decent income started to dry up and go south as the 90s progressed. Photography became cheaper to use and digital art started to be on the rise. Then artificial intelligence (AI) appeared on the scene, and like a thief in the night, art and illustrations became a lost art.
So how can a magazine illustrator make a living in this digital age, and how are hand-created ink on paper illustrations and paintings differ from those created by AI? These questions and more were the center piece of my conversation with an artist who spends his evenings, “doing warmup drawings, just keeping my hand busy, doing sketches from photographs…”
Brian Clarke is not only fun to chat with but also a passionate artist of the art of illustrations and paintings. The “proliferation of AI art,” is what keeps him up at night, but he and his global network of art friends are searching for ways to stop AI from stealing their creative work.
I hope you will enjoy this Mr. Magazine™ interview with Brian Clarke, better known as Les Toil, as much as I enjoyed conducting this interview.
But first the soundbites:
On the origin of the pseudonym name Les Toil: “I got that name by looking at an old issue of National Lampoon, an issue called National Lampoon’s High School Yearbook Parody… and I saw the name Les Toil, which means less work, and I thought that’s a great name, because the style that I’m doing now, pen and ink, is a lot less effort, a lot less toil than an elaborate oil painting.”
On the value of ink on paper art: “You can pick up a magazine anytime. You can grab that magazine and go straight to that art, and Samir, it’s also like when albums went from LPs, went from big albums to little cassettes. As an illustrator, that broke my heart.”
On art and AI: “AI is actually replacing artists. I’m not happy about that. The way that we’re battling, us artists are battling AI art is by putting up restrictions for these AI applications or companies to start harvesting our art, to stop stealing our art.”
On the value of illustrations in today’s marketplace: “I think that importance has diminished a bit unfortunately. Even with AI art, as far as editorial journalism, I’m not really sure if illustration plays a big part as it did in the past.”
On original pieces of art: “I think for the simple fact that if you have a printed piece of art, or if you have your original art, I think just the fact that you have it, the original art in your hand, that kind of makes it art.”
On the reasons art and illustrations have declined: “Because, to be honest, art is not as valued as it once was. The process of photography is a lot easier to attain than it was before.”
On his favorite art magazine: “It’s called Illustration Magazine. Each issue, the editors highlight about three or four classic illustrators from the past, illustrators from all countries.”
On the benefits of art to him: “So there’d be all these different assignments, just hundreds of assignments of subjects that I wasn’t familiar with…I go to the library… I read up on it. And so that was a benefit. I got a good education through doing magazine art.”
On whether art and illustrations are a lost art: “Unfortunately, it is. It is.”
And now for the lightly edited interview with Brian Clarke, better known as Les Toil:
Samir Husni: So, tell me, Brian, my first question is, why the pseudonym name Les Toil?
Brian Clarke: Samir, the name Les Toil came about in the early 1990s, and that is because I was working under my real name, Brian Clarke, ever since I graduated from art school. I went to California College of Arts and Crafts for two years, and then I went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco, which is where I graduated in 1991.
Right after I graduated from art school, art directors, clients, stopped using illustrators for things like magazines and whatever, the type of work that I was getting after art school. I was working for any type of industry that hired illustrators. Again, that included periodicals, it included the film industry, it included the gaming industry, it included advertising art, just any industry that hired illustrators.
I was fortunate enough after art school to get work. So, for a good three or four year period, I was doing fine, and then the whole world of illustration went south, and art directors started to use photographers, they started to use clip art, which is previously done artwork that can be recycled over and over again. So, I wasn’t getting much work after three years of a thriving career as an illustrator in the early 90s, and so a friend of mine, an illustrator friend of mine, started to do rock and roll posters.
He started to do these little mini posters for music shows around the Bay Area. We were young, and we were going to all these different rock and roll shows. He started to do these posters, and he had a friend that was printing these posters in his office, and they were beautiful color posters. Back in the early 90s, having your art printed in color, beautiful color, was fantastic, because all we had were those crappy color Xerox machines. So I started to do some of these rock and roll posters that were being posted all over San Francisco and the Bay Area, and I wanted to have a different name for myself, because back in the 60s, there were all these rock and roll posters for rock bands that were happening, the burgeoning rock and roll scene in the mid-60s, and those artists had cool names, so I wanted to have a cool name for this new style of art that I was doing, and I was also getting into my artwork being colored on the computer.
So for my three-year career as an illustrator, since art school, I was doing these elaborate oil paintings, because all the people that I admired as illustrators when I was going to art school, they all worked in traditional paint, oil, acrylic, gouache, so that’s what I was doing. But then when I started to do the rock and roll art, I switched to an easier style, which was pen and ink, pencil, drawing it in pencil, and then inking the pencil lines, so it kind of looked like comic book art, basically line art, and then I would scan it on a computer and color it with Photoshop, which my friend taught me.
I got an Apple computer, and I started to learn to color my pen and ink art on Photoshop, and so I changed my name to Les Toil, because I thought that was a cool name, and Samir, I got that name by looking at an old issue of National Lampoon, an issue called National Lampoon’s High School Yearbook Parody, and in that issue, they had all these class of 1957 photographs of all the students that were graduating, and they had all these goofy names, like Lindsay Doyle, Jason Rainbows, just all these hilarious names, and I saw the name Les Toil, which means less work, and I thought that’s a great name, because the style that I’m doing now, pen and ink, is a lot less effort, a lot less toil than an elaborate oil painting, so I started to sign those rock and roll posters, Les Toil, with basically a stamp. I wasn’t even signing them, I just put a stamp saying Les Toil. I started to make a name for myself doing this rock and roll art. I started doing rock and roll CD covers, album covers, posters, and I was being interviewed in magazines for the rock and roll art that I was doing under the name Les Toil, so I just kept that name from like 1993 up until now, and nobody knows who the hell Brian Clarke is, but that’s where that name comes from. Sorry for the long story.
Samir Husni: When you look at the art that you create, where’s the value of the ink on paper compared to the digital sphere that we live in, especially that you graduated at the beginning of the digital revolution?
Brian Clarke: I say there’s a value for your art in a printed magazine because you’re not restricted to looking at it on a screen. You don’t have to be at a particular place looking at a particular image to enjoy it. You don’t have to look at a small screen to enjoy that art.
You can pick up a magazine anytime. You can grab that magazine and go straight to that art, and Samir, it’s also like when albums went from LPs, went from big albums to little cassettes. As an illustrator, that broke my heart.
I was a kid when it happened, but you had that big beautiful artwork to look at as you were listening to the music, and I think the same applies to magazines. You have that beautiful illustration to look at that gives you reference to the article that you’re reading or the interview that you’re reading. It gives you reference if you’re reading a fiction story, a short story in a magazine.
You can constantly look at that, and you’re not restricted to having to come into your studio or to look at a computer.
Samir Husni: What role does illustrations play in today’s marketplace?
Brian Clarke: I think that importance has diminished a bit unfortunately. Even with AI art, as far as editorial journalism, I’m not really sure if illustration plays a big part as it did in the past.
People are more than happy with using photographs, even if it’s a fiction story. People seem to be just as happy with a photograph of a man and a woman sitting on a park bench for a short love story. But what the benefits of illustrations in a printed platform is that they’re exposing the reader to art.
Periodicals quite often are the average citizen’s primary exposure to popular culture. When I was going to art school, I discovered so much about art based upon the illustrations that were being printed in magazines throughout the years. I was learning about so many different things including cultures of different countries. You’re not getting that now if you’re not seeing art, original hand-created art in periodicals.
Samir Husni: I’ve seen so much fake art generated by AI on Facebook and other social media platforms. How can you protect the authentic art from the madness of fake AI-generated art?
Brain Clarke: Well, Samir, as you can imagine, I’m very much in social media.
I expose my art through social media, and all of my art friends are just up in arms about AI. We’re very unhappy about that. And people that use AI give the excuse that AI art is only a tool to help real artists, but I don’t believe that’s true because I’m seeing finished pieces of art that were completely created by artificial intelligence.
So AI is actually replacing artists. I’m not happy about that. The way that we’re battling, us artists are battling AI art is by putting up restrictions for these AI applications or companies to start harvesting our art, to stop stealing our art.
There’s now applications that will put stamps or watermarks on our hand-created art in which an AI platform or company can’t steal it. And that’s the only way artificial intelligence art is created is by stealing real artists’ work and then manipulating it. So that’s the only thing we can do to battle the proliferation of AI art now, is to prevent them from stealing our art.
Samir Husni: So tell me, because I think you and I share this love for print. If I have a piece of art in my hands, let’s say the Mona Lisa, if I own the Mona Lisa, or if I see it on my computer screen, which one, does that ownership gives me a different feeling, a different sense of ownership, of showmanship?
Brian Clarke: I think for the simple fact that if you have a printed piece of art, or if you have your original art, I think just the fact that you have it, the original art in your hand, that kind of makes it art. That kind of makes it so you can now frame it and hang it on your wall.
Again, you can’t do that with AI art. When AI art is displayed in art galleries, which I’m starting to see, unfortunately, now, it’s just prints, low resolution prints for that matter.
So, in my opinion, just to hold it, and to be able to display it, and be able to make large, whatever, reprints of original art, I think that’s the benefit. It’s created by a human being with human spirit.
Samir Husni: Why do you think, a hundred years ago, we used to have a lot of art magazines. Why do you think we don’t have as many art magazines, as they used to be a century ago?
Brian Clarke: Because, to be honest, art is not as valued as it once was. Because the process of photography is a lot easier to attain than it was before.
We can pull out our phones and take a photograph. In the past, in the 1920s, the 30s, the 40s, illustration was the official way to embellish a story, to embellish anything, to convey something, because photography just wasn’t all that easy back then. I read your interview with Marianne Howatson on your blog and I completely agree with what she said. You held up an art magazine just now, and I believe, niche type magazines, periodicals, will always thrive. I pay good money for a number of art-related magazines, such as Illustration Magazine and Artist’s Magazine.
These are beautiful, glossy magazines that come out once every six months. They have just stunning prints of old illustrations by great masters of art. I think if I were to start my own magazine, it will be with the type of art that’s always inspired me.
So in that sense, a niche publication, I do believe would thrive. If you believe there’s an audience for what you love, then I think that type of printed material will keep going on.
Samir Husni: What’s your favorite art magazine, if you can?
Brian Clarke: It’s called Illustration Magazine. Each issue, the editors highlight about three or four classic illustrators from the past, illustrators from all countries. The editors get their hands on photographs and scans of some of these classic illustrations that were printed in Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, Newsweek, Time, all those magazines from the 30s, 40s, 50s.
They have beautiful scans of these slides of these pieces. And that’s why I like Illustrator magazine specifically.
Samir Husni: Before I ask you my typical last two questions, is there any question I failed to ask you and you would like me to ask?
Brian Clarke: I’d like to tell you why I had such a fantastic time as an editorial magazine illustrator. And the reason I had such a good time, and it was about a good six years that I was earning a living doing magazine illustrations. The reason why I loved it so much is because almost every assignment was a new exposure to some subject.
I remember getting an assignment to do an illustration for a story on King Henry VIII. I went into the library and I did all my research on King Henry VIII. I gathered all that material, how they were dressed, the structures, the architecture back then. I created an illustration based upon what I studied about that period. Then there’ll be some other assignment that has to do with whatever science fiction, life on Mars.
I’d go to the library and I’d study up on that and I’d see photographs and I’d look at other illustrators interpretation of Mars. So there’d be all these different assignments, just hundreds of assignments of subjects that I wasn’t familiar with. I read up on it.
And so that was a benefit. I got a good education through doing magazine art.
Samir Husni: Let me ask you my typical last two questions. If I come unannounced to your home one day, what do I catch you doing? Painting, drawing, a glass of wine, cooking?
Brian Clarke: You would catch me doing warmup drawings, just keeping my hand busy, doing sketches from photographs. Or if my fiancé is here, I sketch her sitting right over there in front of my table.
I’m always sketching if I don’t have an assignment to do. So just honing my craft with my pencils and my paintbrushes is pretty much what you’ll catch me doing. Or I’ll be looking at an old movie or a new movie after my work day is over.
And that’s pretty much it.
Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night these days?
Brian Clarke: What keeps me up at night is the proliferation of AI art. Pretty much that.
And also because the economy is not doing so well now, what keeps me up at night is worrying about where my next assignment is going to come from. And right now I’ve been paying my bills and staying busy by doing portraits of people and portraits of their pets. And classic pin-up art portraits of women.
And a lot of husbands and boyfriends will contact me and say, you know, my girlfriend wants to look like a 1950s glamour queen, calendar queen. I’ll do it like a classic pin-up portrait of a person’s wife or whoever wants to hire me to do that.
So that’s how I stay busy.
Samir Husni: So can we say then art and illustration are a lost art?
Brian Clarke: Unfortunately, it is. It is.
But me and my art friends across the globe, we’re trying our best to keep it alive.
Don’t you dare tell Marianne Howatson that the magazine advertising model is dead. The CEO and Publication Director of the C&G Media Group disagrees completely with you. Her magazines are doing well, very well indeed, thankfully to the advertising driven magazine publishing model. Her mission, “to deliver the finest design media to the residents of America’s most prestigious communities.”
Ms. Howatson, the former publisher of Self and Travel & Leisure magazines, jumped into the fury of magazine ownership when she bought the Collages and Gardens titles in 2009. Yes, you read that correctly 2009: It was a depressing year for magazines and the economy as a whole. But she took a big chance on those titles, and her gamble paid off and it continues to do so.
In fact she added to the three titles, Hamptons Cottages and Gardens, Connecticut Cottages and Gardens, & New York Cottages and Gardens, her newest title Palm Beach Cottages and Gardens that the former owner of the magazines ceased its publication in 2008. The first issue is a beauty to behold and is loaded with what you expect to see similar to the rest of the magazines in the family of Cottages and Gardens.
Ms Howatson is very optimistic about the future of the new title and the rest of the publications that she owns. Her only worry is, “Are we going to keep doing as well as we’re doing?” she told me when I asked her what keeps her up at night these days.
She is a firm believer in magazines and their future, as long you have a niche audience that is not reached by any other medium or platform, a community spirit, and you are involved in all the major events in the area.
So, without any further ado, here is my lightly edited conversation with Marianne Howatson, CEO and publication Director of C&G Media Group.
But first the soundbites:
On the reason she bought the magazines: “I thought to myself, if the day comes in the United States that we don’t have wealthy people building beautiful houses, we probably won’t even have a planet.”
On if her gamble paid off: “Yes, yes.”
On why Palm Beach Cottages and Gardens now: “When I came on in 2009, hasn’t a week gone by without someone saying, when are you going back to Palm Beach? And it’s only taken us 16 years.”
On the future of print in a digital age: “I think that the future of print in the digital age is very niche groups of people.”
On her favorite magazine in her company: “And so each time we launched a new magazine, it’s like children, you just love them all.”
On her advice for someone starting a new magazine: “I would ask them to make sure that they have a niche audience that very few other people have, and be prepared to just live in the marketplace, work with your readers, work with the advertisers.”
On the magazine publishing advertising driven model: “I think that advertising revenue will be here to stay. It’s very difficult for magazines to only make money on their circulation.”
On what she does at home in the evenings: “We publish 30 editions a year, and that’s more than any other group, it’s an enormous amount of editorial. So I’m doing 30 columns a year, editing, it just keeps going on. But I absolutely love it.”
And now for my lightly edited conversation with Marianne Howatson, CEO and publication director of C&G Media Group:
Samir Husni: Thank you for taking the time to chat with me. My first question to you is an easy one. Back in 2009, when everybody was folding magazines and the country was going into a recession, you bought the Cottages and Gardens publications. What were you thinking?
Marianne Howatson: Several things. One is Connecticut Cottages and Gardens was one of my favorite magazines, and I was in New York City all week working in publishing, and I’d come up to Connecticut on the weekend and I would love the magazine. Then I heard it was for sale. At that point that we were in a major recession.
I thought to myself, if the day comes in the United States that we don’t have wealthy people building beautiful houses, we probably won’t even have a planet. I also thought the designers and these people want to look at big, glossy pages so that their work is shown, the photographers love it. So, those were the reasons.
Samir Husni: Did your gamble pay off?
Marianne Howatson: Yes, yes. I closed it in October 2009. And within the next few months, we started going up, because obviously the company had been impacted by the recession at that point until I bought it, and then we started to climb out.
Samir Husni: It seems that you continue this drive to bring luxury publications to the most luxurious communities. I mean, that’s one of your goals.
Marianne Howatson: Yes.
Samir Husni: So, tell me about the recent launch of the Palm Beach Cottages and Gardens.
Marianne Howatson: Actually, Palm Beach Cottages and Gardens was published between 2004 and 2008 with the old company and the old owner. They had folded that because of the recession, and Palm Beach was very badly hit during that recession.
So, they had stopped publishing it. And when I came on in 2009, hasn’t a week gone by without someone saying, when are you going back to Palm Beach? And it’s only taken us 16 years. But for the last few years, a lot of our clients and our advertisers and designers have come down to Florida, and they’re saying, why don’t you come with us? Come with us.
So we eventually decided that last year we were going to do it.
Samir Husni: I know you’re a luxury publications publisher and CEO. Do you think this is the future of print in this digital age, luxury?
Marianne Howatson: I think that the future of print in the digital age is very niche groups of people.
It may not just be wealthy home design. There could be others. And I think that having a really niche audience, which can’t be reached by anyone else, would be very good for the magazine industry.
Samir Husni: Do you think your magazine media journey has been a walk in a rose garden?
Marianne Howatson: No, I think that I’m used to say that my days were filled with a mixture of horror and elation. And I’ve been trying to change that ratio to have less horror and more elation as I’ve moved on.
Samir Husni: That’s good. Can recount for me what was the biggest stumbling block since you acquired the magazines and how did you overcome it?
Marianne Howatson: Not sure that we had a stumbling block. I think that we’ve been really very fortunate. And one of the things that I think we did was that we isolated very early on.
When I first came on, I saw in research that 95% of our readers worked with design professionals, as architects, designers, builders. And our research showed that 40% of our readers were design professionals. When we recognized that and zeroed in on that, I think it made a big difference because we’re one of the few magazines that has a mixture like that, so that we have lots of architects and designers who advertise with us, as well as, of course, wonderful products.
Samir Husni: Do you have a favorite among the four magazines now?
Marianne Howatson: I love them all. Well, I still love Connecticut as well. But, you know, the Hamptons was the first magazine.
I remember when it was launched in 2002, it was really very well received. It was spectacular. It was very different in the Hamptons.
And so each time we launched a new magazine, it’s like children, you just love them all.
Samir Husni: Well, let me ask you, your magazines are still advertising driven. Yes. And we hear a lot about that the advertising driven model is dead.How come you’re surviving?
Marianne Howatson: Well, I don’t think the advertising driven model is dead, because, well, A, it’s a major revenue stream. And we did not fall into the challenges of having subscriptions.
Most magazines are not able to make money on their subscriptions. And that would have been a drag on the company. We have a very select way of reaching our readers.
So I think that advertising revenue will be here to stay. It’s very difficult for magazines to only make money on their circulation.
Samir Husni: If you look like at the new launch, the first issue of the Palm Beach Cottages and Gardens, how do you compare this relaunch experience after the magazine ceased publication in 2008? What was your message?
Marianne Howatson: The message was that we’re coming back. And a lot of people in the market remembered us.
We told everyone we’re following that same pattern we decided for our magazines. They have the same format, the same size, and the same type of photography, etc. We told everyone we’re following that same pattern. And because their knowledge of Hamptons, Connecticut and New York, they responded to it.
Samir Husni: I hear a lot from people that magazines in Florida can flourish, but magazines in California will not. Is that the reason all your magazines are on the East Coast?
Marianne Howatson: I haven’t heard that. Florida, it’s very concentrated. It’s really exciting. I think California has a lot of space.
It’s a different market. Here, we have an exodus of people coming down here. Also the real estate group Related Ross has 24 buildings going up in West Palm Beach, right now over the next few years. So that is an awful lot of units for people to live in.
And they’re going to need to have them decorated. Does they need the magazines? Yes.
Samir Husni: With all the experience under your belt, if somebody comes to you and said, I want to publish a new magazine, what advice do you give them?
Marianne Howatson: I would ask them to make sure that they have a niche audience that very few other people have, and be prepared to just live in the marketplace, work with your readers, work with the advertisers. We have very much of a community spirit, and we are involved in all the major events and the areas that we’re in.
We support the charities, we’ve launched quite a few of them. So I would say that don’t go into it if you’re going to be an absentee manager. You really need to have that passion, and that’s what your community will respond to.
Samir Husni: Good advice. In addition to your magazines, you publish a lot of special publications, can tell me a little bit more about that.
Marianne Howatson: Yes, we have the New York Design Guide, the Connecticut Design Guide, and the Hamptons Design Guide, and because of this relationship between design professionals and our readers, we felt that there was so much information that they wanted, so we created these design guides, and they’re smaller than our big magazines. They’re made of paper that would last all year, and the idea is anyone who lives in these towns, if they want to find an architect, or they want to look for some wallpaper, it should be in that design guide.
So it’s a very different publication.
Samir Husni: Excellent, and before I ask you my typical last two personal questions, is there any question I failed to ask you you’d like me to ask, and or you’d like to add?
Marianne Howatson: No, I think you did terrifically.
Samir Husni: So if I come uninvited one evening to your house, what do I catch Marianne doing? Cooking, watching TV, having a glass of wine?
Marianne Howatson: Sad to say, I would probably be reading the dummy of one of our issues.
We publish 30 editions a year, and that’s more than any other group, it’s an enormous amount of editorial. So I’m doing 30 columns a year, editing, it just keeps going on. But I absolutely love it.
You probably find me doing that or just relaxing in the house. And if I’m outside, I’m looking at shops and looking at antique shops and design shops.
Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night these days?
Marianne Howatson: Worrying about, are we going to keep doing as well as we’re doing? Exactly the question you asked me.
I have a confession to make. When my mailman delivered issue 201 of Mountain Gazette to me at 3:00 pm, I did not put it down until 9:00 pm that evening. Six hours of magazine heaven. Total bliss and experience unlike any other.
I was determined to interview the experience maker behind Mountain Gazette: Mike Rogge. He is the owner and editor of the magazine and his wife Meghan Forbes Rogge is the vice president of Mountain Gazette.
The year was 2020 when Mike bought Mountain Gazette and decided to relaunch it after an eight year hiatus. As his wife likes to say, “when others were learning how to make sourdough starters and bread during the pandemic, we were learning how to make a magazine again.” And making a magazine they did with a tagline for the ages, “When in Doubt, Go Higher.”
Mike Rogge, owner and editor, with his wife Meghan Forbes Rogge, vice president, Mountain Gazette
An oversized magazine measuring a little bit less than 11 X 17 gives you the feeling that you, the reader, is a giant holding a billboard between your hands. Marvelous stories, beautiful pictures, and a great design sets Mountain Gazette apart from the competition, if there is any to be found.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Rogge, the owner and editor of Mountain Gazette, and found him to be the perfect imperfect experience maker. So please feel free to be mesmerized with this Mr. Magazine™ interview, but first the soundbites:
On the drive behind the relaunch of Mountain Gazette: “I just thought if we made something that was big and beautiful, it would work.”
On the reason he bought the magazine: “I’m a pretty community-oriented person and I really care about what we put out into the world. So I felt like outdoor culture, the outdoor community deserved a print title like this.”
On his business model: “Our business model is simple, we have subscribers, we make the magazine for our readers and nobody else.”
On his advertisers: “We always put ads in the front and in the back of the magazine. Never in the middle, ever. We’ll never do that.”
On Mountain Gazette’s audience: “We have a highly engaged, sophisticated audience that’s becoming rarer and rarer to reach on the Internet. So that’s the way we work with our partners.”
On the team producing the magazine: “Our journalists are vetted. They’re award winning. They’re what I would call exceptional people and creators.”
On the role AI plays in magazine making: “Our magazine is made by people. And I think that as good as AI is, AI has never been hurt. AI has never been in love. It can fake that. AI has never been given a cancer diagnosis. AI has never been told that they’re cancer free. AI has never watched their child be born. And above all, I believe in the human experience because it’s not clean. It’s messy. And messy looks good in our pages.”
On his journey with Mountain Gazette: “My wife describes me as a duck. I’m cool on the surface and underneath I’m paddling like crazy.”
On which role he enjoys most from all his roles: “So far, being editor has felt the most natural position for me to have.”
On the mission of the magazine: “We look at the world through an outdoor lens. We have this strong belief at the magazine that going outdoors anywhere in the world… has the ability to change your life.”
On what keeps him up at night: “That is such a timely question to me. I’m concerned about our ability to print in Canada, totally dependent on these tariffs.”
And now for the lightly edited interview with Mike Rogge, owner and editor, Mountain Gazette magazine:
Samir Husni: Mike, while others were killing magazines in 2020, you bought Mountain Gazette and you were the forerunner of relaunching magazines as we are seeing this year and last year. What gives?
What gave you the idea to buy a magazine that has been dead for almost eight years and to bring it back to life in print and all the surroundings of the print that you’ve done?
Mike Rogge: Well, I have worked for magazines for a long time.
I worked for a newspaper when I was 19 and I’ve worked for blogs. I think one of the things you learn when you work for a lot of media companies is know what to do and what not to do. There’s good practices and bad practices and I thought what if we started a media company and we tried to do things the right way, knowing we would make mistakes along the way and learn from them and we’ve been pretty adamant about learning from our mistakes. I just thought if we made something that was big and beautiful, it would work.
Samir Husni: Besides being a journalist, a filmmaker, now you are also an owner and editor, what’s the drive that makes you create such a beautiful, upscale, large publication in ink on paper in this digital age?
Mike Rogge: I’m a pretty community-oriented person and I really care about what we put out into the world. So I felt like outdoor culture, the outdoor community deserved a print title like this. And I think one thing is respecting creators, respecting writers, photographers, artists, having respect for them, having respect for our readers was paramount to us being able to create something special.
So my drive is, I try to make the next issue better than the last one. This is our 10th issue that we’re putting out and it’s getting harder to do that, but we are having a good time trying to warm up ourselves up here.
Samir Husni: You wrote that the old magazine business model is dead and you are introducing a new business model.Can you expand a little bit on that?
Mike Rogge: I think the model of going out and saying to advertisers, this is how many readers we have and printing an exorbitant amount of magazines just to say that you did print an exorbitant amount of magazines and not sell them at all. Our business model is simple, we have subscribers, we make the magazine for our readers and nobody else. You can’t buy it on the newsstand.
We rarely sell single copy issues. We are doing our best just to keep this like a closed ecosystem where our readers pay us a fee per year to get two issues. In return, we protect that content from the magazine and make sure that it’s exclusive to them.
They only get it. We don’t republish online or anything like that. And that’s that.
Samir Husni: But you’re still accepting advertising? And how do you treat the advertisers in this community of Mountain Gazette?
Mike Rogge: The first thing that our subscribers and our ad partners know is that we don’t do advertorials. And I think that’s a benefit to both. Our readers are never questioning, is this an ad or is this a story? If it’s in the magazine and it’s not clearly an ad, it’s a story.
We always put ads in the front and in the back of the magazine. Never in the middle, ever. We’ll never do that.
What I think is interesting is we have a highly engaged, sophisticated audience that’s becoming rarer and rarer to reach on the Internet. So that’s the way we work with our partners. We tell them we don’t write about gear. We don’t write about jackets. We don’t rank ski resorts. So you have an opportunity to be in our magazine and tell our readers what’s great about your ski area or your jackets or your ski boots or whatnot.
They’ve found it to be really beneficial to date. We hear a lot from our ad partners. It’s the only place that they ever get compliments on their ads. They get people on the street that I saw the Solomon ad or the Fly Low ad in the last issue of Mountain Gazette. It looks really great. I think that’s because of our large format. The magazine really lends itself to great photography.
Samir Husni: You mentioned that most of what’s on the Internet and social media is trash, quote, unquote. How do you define the role of print in this digital age?
Mike Rogge: I think we have to understand that we’ve got a copy editor, a managing editor, myself, we have fact checkers. Our journalists are vetted. They’re award winning. They’re what I would call exceptional people and creators. So I think if anything, like our content, it’s curated and it’s vetted and you can’t say that about most things on the Internet.
We’re not in this to look for a fight. It’s not to say that we’re just going to let people steamroll us. But like, we do some reporting. We do some trip stuff. We do some first descent, cool stuff. We do aspirational stuff. We do inspirational stuff. We have humor. And I think that’s more reflective of how the real world actually is.
If you go on the Internet, you would think the world is falling apart every single day, every single minute. And certainly the world is not in a great place right now. But I think we can all agree that the world’s also not on fire right now, either.
The print magazine is based in reality, and that’s where we want to keep it.
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Samir Husni: Mike, especially when it comes to photography, and you have gorgeous photography in the magazine.But now with AI, we are seeing so much fake pictures on the Internet. I can create even fake pictures saying, Samir is on Mount Everest and I’m here in Oxford, Mississippi. Do you have any fear from AI or is it a friend or foe?
Mike Rogge: I love it. I love AI.
I think it’s great. I went to college for English literature and writing. So when I have business questions, you know, I can ask AI, I want you to pretend you’re an MBA, and this is a business problem I have.
It’s just kind of bouncing ideas off it. I think it’s great for that. There’s a lot of promise for medical use.
But our magazine is made by people. And I think that as good as AI is, AI has never been hurt. AI has never been in love. It can fake that. AI has never been given a cancer diagnosis. AI has never been told that they’re cancer free. AI has never watched their child be born. And above all, I believe in the human experience because it’s not clean. It’s messy.
And messy looks good in our pages. Here’s what I know. Samir on top of Everest, that would be really, really cool. I know people that have climbed Everest. And I can tell you that what makes their Everest journey important is not getting to the top, but how they got to the top, the challenges they face in their lives. And that, to me, is part of the human experience.
I don’t know that a robot will ever be, certainly can try to fake it, right? I do say this often, though. It makes me think of the scene in the movie Good Will Hunting, where Matt Damon and the late Robin Williams, are sitting on a bench. And he goes, sure, you can tell me everything about the Sistine Chapel, when it was built, when it was painted, everything.
But you can’t tell me what it feels like to be there. You can’t tell me what it smells like to be there with the woman you love. And it’s like this trip you dreamed of.
I do think that nuance is often overlooked. And on a final note on AI, don’t you think it’s so interesting that the first thing they asked AI to do, these creators, quote unquote, these people that have no artistic ability, was to try to mimic being an artist. That makes me kind of sad.
I don’t know how to tell Sam Altman this, but like, your painting is good enough, buddy. If it came from your heart, it’s good enough.
Samir Husni: Good. Tell me, has your journey with Mountain Gazette been a walk in a rose garden?
Mike Rogge: No. No. No. My wife describes me as a duck. I’m cool on the surface and underneath I’m paddling like crazy.
One thing that has been challenging is the notion that I might have all the answers because of our success. And the truth is, I have the answers for our title when we face problems or challenges because I’m deeply involved. This is what I do. This is my work. This is my life. In some senses, for better or worse, it’s part of my identity as being the editor of Mountain Gazette.
Obviously, there’s been way more good times than bad. Currently we’re printing our magazine in Canada and we’re dealing with a tariff issue and that’s a challenge. But I’m inspired by some of the athletes who do climb Everest and fail. They don’t make it to the top. And what they do the next year is they return. That’s kind of our thing, we may get punched, but we’re going to get back up.
The last five years have offered me some opportunities that I could have never dreamed of. And mostly that’s working with contributors.
Samir Husni: You wear too many hats with Mountain Gazette. Which one do you prefer? Is it the owner, the editor, the publisher?
Mike Rogge: I like a little bit of all of them. So far, being editor has felt the most natural position for me to have.
I don’t necessarily prefer being the trash guy who takes out the trash at our office, but that’s one of my hats too. But I like being the editor of Mountain Gazette. That’s by far my favorite.
I guess my favorite part of the publishing side has been trying to get to know some of the men and women and people who actually physically make our magazine. They’re craftspeople. They essentially work in a factory and they take a lot of pride in their work.
And I’m inspired by that.
Samir Husni: Is there anything you would like to add before I ask my final two personal questions?
Mike Rogge: We relaunched Mountain Gazette in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, and my wife likes to say that when others were learning how to make sourdough starters and bread during the pandemic, we were learning how to make a magazine again. So that what we did. When I bought the magazine, my original ambition for it was to try to get to a thousand subscribers.
I felt like that would be a good four or five year goal. We hit that in six months. We say this that this magazine is not for everyone, but obviously anyone can subscribe to it.
We don’t limit anyone in wanting to look at it. But we’ve certainly found people that accuse us of being too liberal or too conservative. And we don’t see it as a political act.
We see it as an artistic expression. I suppose you could view the entire world through a political lens. It’s not how we look at it.
We look at the world through an outdoor lens. We have this strong belief at the magazine that going outdoors anywhere in the world, whether it’s Missouri or Manhattan or Mount Everest or wherever, it could change your life. It has the ability to change your life.
Those are the stories that we seek. In our next issue, we have first descent of a mountain in Pakistan that no one’s ever heard of. But truly, like I think maybe 300 people in the history of the world have ever even been in its presence.
Well, and the following story is about fly fishing in the 1980s on the New Jersey coastline. I find that those stories equally tell the story of the outdoor experience. And these experiences are our mission, they allow us to have a lot of different voices in our magazine, a lot of different perspectives.
I don’t expect everyone to like every single article at the Mountain Gazette, but I can tell people that every single piece at the Mountain Gazette comes from somebody’s heart. No one is weighing up their Mountain Gazette story. They’re putting everything they have into it.
Samir Husni: So tell me Mike, if I come unannounced visiting you one evening at home, what do I catch you doing? Having a glass of wine, cooking, eating dinner?
Mike Rogge: Depending on what time, you will find me playing with our two sons that are six and two. We’ve got two dogs. We live a pretty quiet life here in Tahoe.
My wife and I tend to go out and see some outdoor films. North Lake Tahoe is sort of like Avengers Tower. If you’re into outdoor recreation, we have several first descent, first to do this in the outdoor recreational world.
We run into them in the grocery store. I’ve always joked, it’s like being a non-superhero and living in Avengers Tower and Iron Man to pass the cream, the coffee. We live a pretty quiet life.
We’re a family of four with two dogs, and we’re just really enjoying our kids being young. We go to a few fundraisers here and there, catch a movie. But we spend a lot of time outdoors.
Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night these days?
Mike Rogge: That is such a timely question to me. I’m concerned about our ability to print in Canada, totally dependent on these tariffs. And what upsets me is that our printing partner, Hemlock, has nothing to do with it.
The fact is a 25% tax on our print bill. We’re a sheet-fed magazine, a large format, sheet-fed. It’s 160 pages, but we’re probably using, on a standard magazine size, close to 300 pages of paper per issue.
We chose to do it that way because we wanted to offer our readers a high-quality product, and we felt like magazine stories deserved to be put in a high-quality format. I worry about it in part because, again, this is a non-political statement. It’s just fact.
The idea around these tariffs changes sometimes hourly, daily, weekly. News happens on the weekends. So I’m a little concerned about that.
I want to make sure that we can keep printing, high-quality products, whether it’s in Canada or we have to move to the U.S.
And what keeps me up at night? I worry about AI infringing on our creators’ rights, only because, we have a standard licensing agreement, and it really puts the creator front and center. And, we have this reputation. There’s a reason why we’re able to work with creators like, Harry Bliss and the comedian Steve Martin in every issue for the last two years, because we have a reputation.
I just worry about people taking advantage of that or taking advantage of our creators in an effort to try to earn a quick payday. We keep our head above water. We’re profitable, but I feel like in the magazine industry, you have to constantly be preparing for, not just rainy days, but snowy days and typhoons and everything.
It’s a medium that a lot of people have forgotten about. We obviously haven’t. And my hope is through these tariffs and everything, that some of the magazines that have arrived alongside us or after us, can also survive, because, saving for a rainy day is expensive.
To say Paul Sammon and Allison Duncan know research will be a major understatement. They live research and love it. Paul and Allison bring more than 50 years of working for major magazine research companies and magazine media, the likes of DJG Marketing, MRI, and Advanstar.
The two of them are as passionate as the clients they are working for: passionate publishers in the small to midsize magazines. Paul and Allison refer to themselves as “Data Connectors.” They are not only data collectors; they know how to analyze customers’ answers and they know how to connect those answers to the relevant and necessary needs of their clients.
All in One Insights is not afraid of AI and what it can do. The two of them are not worried about dipping their toes in AI because they know for sure that “The one thing it doesn’t seem to do is define compelling points of difference.” And delivering those points of difference is one major asset that they can provide their clients.
If you are in need for help in your magazine media research, on all the fronts of magazine making, you need to read this interview with the president and chief operating officer of the new firm All in One Insights.
And now for the lightly edited interview with Paul Sammon, president, and Allison Duncan, Chief Operating Officer, All in One Insights, but first the soundbites:
On the mission of All in One Insights: “Delivering (research) with high quality and with all the pieces of the puzzle … research, sales, marketing, editorial, consumer marketing, and making sure that it’s something they can feel good about across the whole brand footprint.”
On the clients of All in One Insights: “Passion-based publishers, where we used to call them simply vertical interests, but they can be very small.”
On what All in One Insights deliver its clients: “Making sure we give them ways to understand themselves better, whether that be editorial differences, newer readers preferring different content than longstanding readers.”
On their promise to clients: “Making sure that they understand the role we’re looking to play, again, to that data connector, not just collector, is making sure they come away with an insight across all their platforms.”
On the goal of forming All in One Insights: “Our goal in forming All in One Insights is to be the external resource, but to give them a very internal feel.”
On whether AI plays a role in All in One Insights: “I think right now that’s not quite a part of our story yet. For All in One, it’s also a matter of we’re just still connecting with our clients on a very intimate level.”
On what AI can’t deliver: “The key element there is the one thing we’re not seeing AI really very capable of doing is developing the texture and the personality side.”
More on what AI can’t deliver: “The one thing it doesn’t seem to do is define compelling points of difference.”
On their belief in print: “People are just so caught up in the reading the big headline of print is dead and it’s not. There’s a story that’s happening with it. It’s just a matter of, it’s a new print.”
On whether the research is done for the sake of marketing or journalism: . One of the things that’s changed a great deal in the past five for sure, is 90% of our survey work now incorporates the editorial team in the conversation where virtually everyone we did years ago was extremely driven by an advertising outcome.”
On what they consider their number one job: “Our first and foremost job is to listen to somebody, listen to their struggles.”
On what keeps Paul up at night: “Trying to find the unique question we can pose to clients that closes the gap for them.”
On what keeps Allison up at night: “I’ll make the joke of it. It’s plane fares. You keep seeing planes tossing and turning and I have no fear of flying. And I’m like, ooh, really?”
And now for the lightly edited interview with Paul Sammon, president, and Allison Duncan, Chief Operating Officer, All in One Insights:
Samir Husni: Give me the elevator pitch for All-in-One Insights.
Paul Sammon: I think the key thing that when we started crafting this, it was a matter of really being there for our clients, for what they needed, not about us, not about what we could do per se in terms of our capabilities, but just fulfilling the needs they had.
The big benefit we see that we’re presenting ourselves as “Data Connectors”, not just simply data collectors. Realistically, they can all have research from many options, and we want to be the one that’s delivering it with high quality and with all the pieces of the puzzle … research, sales, marketing, editorial, consumer marketing, and making sure that it’s something they can feel good about across the whole brand footprint.
Samir Husni: When you talk about clients, who are your clients? Define client for me.
Paul Sammon: Sure. Most of their backbone meshes well with our experience as well, is many of them are, in the vein of small, medium, independent publishers, predominantly. I would say, for lack of a better category, passion-based publishers, where we used to call them simply vertical interests, but they can be very small.
Something so full of passion, really makes our hearts sing to get the chance to work with it. I think the one other area that’s become very plain to us is the membership association publishing sector. It’s such a different model, but there is so much engagement inherent in those broader relationships that they’re needing that assistance for the insights they can get for a lot of different reasons, membership retention, acquisition, editorial.
In traditional terms, they actually rely less on the advertising side that would be more the traditional reason you do a media research study.
Samir Husni: So, if I come to you as a small publisher that have, let’s say, a city magazine, let’s say The Boca Raton Observer or Memphis, what can you tell me you can provide me to help me sustain and increase my reach?
Paul Sammon: I think the key elements are making sure we give them ways to understand themselves better, whether that be editorial differences, newer readers preferring different content than longstanding readers.
It’s particularly germane in the city regional space where you’ll have the always desperate desire to bring on new readers, but they may actually come to you for very different reasons. We’ve seen that very clearly in work we’ve done. The other side of it is making sure that they understand the role we’re looking to play, again, to that data connector, not just collector, is making sure they come away with an insight across all their platforms.
There are such graphic differences in the way that those, when we measure them, ask the same question, we will see different answers across those platforms. A newsletter reader who engages with other elements, so that’s one, it’s providing them with a lens across the full brand platform. It goes back to something I think you’ve interviewed her a number of times, you’ve been dear friends with her for a long, long time, is Bonnie Kintzer at the Digest.
Obviously, I’m an alum of it. I spent nine years there. She and I became friends, but one of the things she really put forth was making sure what you did was to deliver content wherever the reader wanted to consume it – not simply where the publisher did.
She used the word agnostic to just say success wasn’t measured by a digital platform driving someone to a print subscription, that the essence of what you were doing was just providing them the means to consume you, however they felt most comfortable. The good news for us is on a research site, we see that when there are more than one channel engaged, it absolutely makes an enormous difference. There’s more love of the brand, there’s more engagement with the brand, simple strong things like travelers traveling more, fishermen fishing more.
Allison Duncan: It’s a way to amplify the magazine media platform they start with. I think part of what we set out to do this is so many of these, as you were describing, the small to medium-sized publishers, are not able to go to the big research companies. They won’t look at them at this point simply because unless you have mid to high five figures, they’re not interested in those projects.
We saw the struggle, especially being where Paul came from. We saw that inability to connect with them, but they still need data and solutions. Our goal in forming All in One Insights is to be the external resource, but to give them a very internal feel. We want to be their external internal resource is how we sometimes put it to them. We want them to be able to feel like they can reach out to us if they have a particular question. If they have a potential advertiser and they just need something quick in the field, that’s going to be five questions just to get an RFP out the door.
We want to build that relationship with them. Of course, we want to do their bigger study for them, but we also want that feeling that they can come to us on a smaller ad hoc basis too. We had that discussion just yesterday where a seasonal circumstance, clients looking to do the full reader study, all important elements for the ad sales team, for the editorial team, membership as well, but one of the things they noted that they have a particular high point in the very early part of the year where the activity around this particular point of interest is very high, but they didn’t want to wait that long to do the research work.
It was very comfortable for us to volunteer to be there to be able to execute something that’s considerably smaller, tighter, but right within that window of time that would matter most for them. Again, that kind of flexibility is baked into the way we want to do what we’re doing.
Samir Husni: Do you see AI as the data collector and you as the data connector?
Allison Duncan: It’s interesting. Certainly something that we’ve been dipping our toes into in the sense of reaching out, understanding what some of this AI looks like in the sense of you now have panels that are basically built upon it. I think eventually it’s going to take over more. Most of our clients at this point have their own built-in respondents.
So for an affordability standpoint at this point, we’re not having clients having to reach out yet to learn about who can be their potential new target audience. We haven’t had to really do that in a little while. We’ve done that previously with other clients.
We haven’t seen that come up lately. So right now we haven’t really had to go that route, but we’ve definitely been through a couple of pitches from some of the panel companies with the AI predictability panels. And I think eventually we’re going to end up looking towards it and using it.
Paul Sammon: I think right now that’s not quite a part of our story yet. For All in One, it’s also a matter of we’re just still connecting with our clients on a very intimate level. It’s a circumstance where the conversation, what they’ll divulge to us about a challenge for example a city & regional entity told us about a conversation they’re having with a celebration that’s happening and the nature of such event.
His charge to us, as much as we’re still talking about doing a full reader study, was how can I take advantage of the fact this celebration’s occurring? It is very logical we should be a part of it. How might we become a part of it? And I think that there’s opportunity in some of the bigger learning to understand. There’s 47 different events that’ll happen around it. Maybe query AI to see which ones fit best.
Allison touched on a neat point, one of the blessings of working with indie magazine media platforms is that they do own their own sample base. Their subscriber file is something remarkably unique in the world of market research. Traditionally, you’re having to reach out to some external entity to learn.
Similarly, though, we’ve got clients who are looking to grow. And I think we’ll be looking at AI to kind of help us expand. What’s the best definition of that? If we’re looking at concentric circles and the core being as tight and good as it is, the next one they understand.
But what are those other rings? Where might we be able to expand reasonably? These tend to be clients with modest budgets to do these things. So it’s really having someone like ourselves help guide their hand and understand what’s reasonable and what’s not.
Samir Husni: If I can use AI, do I need research?
Paul Sammon: The key element there is the one thing we’re not seeing AI really very capable of doing is developing the texture and the personality side. I think it will always be useful in the realm of a hard data points. Do you do this? What are the demography elements in that? I think the key thing is that when an ad sales conversation is going well and there’s research underneath it, it helped inform better storytelling.
That’s yet the place we’re seeing AI contribute much because it’s not the emotional side of the conversation. There’s not a lot of texture to that. AI will reach to that common denominator and it can be done in an accurate manner.
The one thing it doesn’t seem to do is define compelling points of difference. An element there that really stands out, I had the experience back prior to be working with five golf magazines at the same time. They are generally the same gender, age, income, and education.
There’s very little difference. I formally worked at an automotive enthusiast title, very much the same thing. The advertiser would always ask you, well, why should I be with you instead of them? And it was really helping bring out a texture, a story, some compelling point of difference that was about an attitude.
That’s not quite yet what we’re seeing coming out of an AI conversation. It doesn’t mean it won’t be down the road. If you ask those provocative questions to a wine enthusiast magazine as to when did you first fall in love with wine? We’re really not going to get any kind of good answer out of an AI circumstance with that. I think AI will come into our lives potentially down the road when we start the idea of possibly building products to possibly bring to clients eventually.
Allison Duncan: But we’re still at the building stage. We’re still trying to, we’re getting our feet wet. And right now our main focus and goal is to really just get in the trenches with our clients and to really get an understanding because it’s such a changing landscape and it’s an exciting landscape.
People are just so caught up in the reading the big headline of print is dead and it’s not. There’s a story that’s happening with it. It’s just a matter of, it’s a new print.
It’s an evolving print, but it’s truly strong. And there’s a youthfulness happening with it too that needs to be celebrated.
Samir Husni: So Allison, with this new print is marketing more important than journalism or journalism more important than marketing? How do you balance between the two? Are we seeing more marketing than journalism taking place?
Allison Duncan: I think you have them intertwined.
In a certain way, I think you have marketing that’s looking like journalism and journalism that’s looking like marketing. That’s half of influencing is the pseudo, both of them at times, there’s a pseudo intellectualism at times that happens. And sometimes it’s a little bit of both.
There’s a provocativeness to it that makes you think, and isn’t that essentially journalism at times? And yet it drives you to look at something, buy something, do something, and that’s marketing. So I think it’s an interesting time for that. And there’s an evolution.
The younger consumers, who takes in this stuff, definitely needs something different than per se, the three of us sitting on this call.
Paul Sammon: Having grown up where I did work at Reader’s Digest, there was a literal separation of church and state. And the nature of that was never violated.
But as time passed, you could see the beginnings of a cooperative relationship and an understanding where if you valued the quality of the journalism coming into the process, you would find things like native advertising occurring with some quality attached to it, as opposed to just shilling for something. I think also too that is marketing, Alison really nailed it, was the inextricably interwoven nature is that if marketing programs are generally going to be better when they’re more well-informed, and that’s largely our role with the research, but most important is you’re going to express that outbound. And that just leads to more buyer confidence.
They see relevance in the discussion. They trust what you’re saying. I think in it all, no matter what you do, if you violate that trust, you’ve lost.
So as they’re all respectfully understanding what each other are contributing to the process, I think it’s a healthy thing. If it goes too far off in any one direction, probably not so much.
Samir Husni: So if I hire you as a client, do you help me with your research to enhance my journalism and my marketing?
Paul Sammon: Absolutely. One of the things that’s changed a great deal in the past eight years, or past five for sure, is 90% of our survey work now incorporates the editorial team in the conversation where virtually everyone we did years ago was extremely driven by an advertising outcome. Typically back then, we were looking, let’s say[PS1] , if you were fishing, we wanted to know how often, what you spent and what type you do. Functionally though now, it’s helping Editorial teams as well, delivering insights on content preferences by their various channels. Ad sales teams still get what they need – and we’re able to deliver more insights across more of the organization.
It absolutely is part of virtually every piece of work we do now. And little techniques that we’re learning along the way, which seem like simple questions about just how long have you been a reader of this magazine? That drives an amazing level of understanding that if you just didn’t ask that question, you would never know, but simply a newer reader, we were dealing with a city regional magazine that came to suddenly understand it wasn’t about “age”. It was more about “term” … have you been a reader for less than five years, simply had them looking for more entertainment, similar to kind of the elements online that would give you guidance to where to go eat, where to stay, where to visit, where to have fun.
Whereas that well, long-term reader looked for completely different things. So it was interesting to do that. Odd part for us was you’re having this discussion with the publisher, the advertising, the editorial, and all of a sudden the consumer marketing people became involved because how long have you been a reader, inform their discussions about recruitment of new readers, retentions of existing ones.
They’re trying to make more out of the investment they’re making with us. So, you respond by trying to do more for the element that they’re looking for the most.
Samir Husni: Excellent. Before I ask you my typical last questions, is there any question I failed to ask you, anything you would like me to ask, or anything you’d like to add?
Paul Sammon: I think we touched on the most important parts. The key piece for us is that Allison touched on it earlier is that we have a genuine passion for the space we occupy.
It is literally fun working with publishers. We’ve joined on with ACP, the Association of Community Publishers, the CRMA, and are sponsors of Niche Media. All of their stories are incredibly unique and different and that excites us.
Obviously, having spent elements of my career at some of the largest media brands there are, love them dearly, learned a lot, but we both really have a lot of passion for small/medium sized publishers. Those people also don’t tend to have the staffs that we represent. We’re the help they can hire to be all these years of experience, having seen all these various discussions.
Watch them wrestle with things as simple as, I’m looking at digital subscriptions, but nobody seems to be terribly excited about it. What’s the difference? Are they different people? What do I need to do to simply mechanically boost open rates so that more people take it on? I think we get the chance to be enmeshed in so much more, very broadly, very deeply though. That’s a big part of it.
Allison Duncan: One of the greatest things we get to do is, one of the things is just getting to sit, listen. That’s our first job. Our first and foremost job is to listen to somebody, listen to their struggles.
They’re struggling and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that and listening to what they’re looking for, what they’re needing. The best thing that we can do, given the years of experience we have, which is quite a few rotations around the sun, a few more than we like to admit sometimes, but to then bring in what we know.
That doesn’t mean that you force your nature upon the client, but our goal is to become that trusted advisor to them and to bring that experience and to give them even more than they even expected. Our job is to give us the Christmas list and they’re not always going to get everything on that Christmas list because we only have a certain amount of time with a respondent. Our goal is to get the most out of that respondent in the best way because that’s such a special interaction and we never take it for granted.
A respondent is a truly special thing to us and we never want to alienate anybody. We’re always very mindful of that relationship that that person has with the entity and we never want to cross a boundary. But one of the things I love is learning more from them than anybody ever expected to see, getting more data than certainly the client thought was possible, and answering more questions than they even had.
And that was kind of one of the exciting things. I know it’s something that Paul missed for his years when he stepped away from DJG was he wasn’t then able to take that data and do things with it. He’s such a storyteller and now he gets to go back to storytelling.
Samir Husni: Well, let me ask you now my two personal questions that if you read my blog, you will know what they are.Allison, if I come to visit you one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing? Reading a book, having a glass of wine, cooking, watching TV?
Allison Duncan: Cooking dinner, because I love to cook. And generally there’s a ball game on. Right now it’s kind of spending time working on building a business.
Paul Sammon: I would probably also say there’s probably a ball game on. Today is a happy day in my life. The Yankees begin to play their first spring training game. So this is my official first day of spring. And given that I also umpire baseball, basically the orbit of my life is pretty much 1st of March till around Halloween. It’s a lot of fun!
Allison and I find ourself in our day kind of doing all the work of the day. And then we find the last hour or so of it kind of reflecting on what are we going to look at tomorrow about the business. But we’re having fun with it.
Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night for these days?
Paul Sammon: Trying to find the unique question we can pose to clients that closes the gap for them. We’re having a lot of great conversations. It’s about how do I help them understand that now’s the time to act? And what can we be doing right now to help you? There’s a lot. One thing we do sense in the market right now is there’s a little hesitation in things and just trying to help. Their needs are real. Those are urgent. And we just want to try and help that conversation along to good outcomes for them.
Allison Duncan: I’ll make the joke of it. It’s plane fares. You keep seeing planes tossing and turning and I have no fear of flying. And I’m like, ooh, really? Keeps me up at night. You know what? Honestly, the day is done. I’m kind of tired and I sleep. Good. And I don’t, I’m happy with that. That and occasionally your dog who decides he’s needing to occupy your side of the bed.
TOPS News is the membership magazine for TOPS Club Inc. TOPS stands for Take Off Pounds Sensibly. Its motto for the last 75 years since its inception is Real People. Real Weight Loss.
In 2025, and for the first time, the TOPS News magazine started accepting advertising on the pages of the magazine. Through an agreement with the James G. Elliott Company, Inc., the magazine opened its pages to advertising in a move that is seen to add more help to their members.
I reached out to TOPS News president Rick Danforth, editor and publisher Barry Gantenbein, and senior designer Dave Zylstra to chat about the organization and its magazine. It was sort of a roundtable about TOPS News, the magazine’s mission, and the reason they are now accepting advertising in the magazine.
Before the interview, I should note that in a recent study the magazine found out that over 90% of the members see it as the number one benefit of membership. A quarter of the membership responded, unaided, to the study in the first two days. A response rarely heard about in the magazine industry.
So without any further delay, please enjoy this round table conversation with the team at TOPS News and what is in store for the years to come.
But first the soundbites:
On TOPS News mission: “I view TOPS News as our best vehicle to keep in constant contact with our members to share success stories and give them updated information on a healthy lifestyle.” Rick Danforth.
On why they are accepting advertising: “Because things are getting more costly and it was a way of generating some revenue.” RD
On why did you add the publisher title to the editor’s title: “One of the reasons that I became publisher was just to prevent any snags in meeting our deadlines.” Barry Gantenbein
On how is TOPS News different than the rest of weight loss magazines: “I think the one thing that really separates TOPS News is the group support, from the chapter level and also from the magazine.” BG
On how to approach the design of the magazine: “Our members are basically our core demographic, trying to think and trying to tap into their minds what they want to see.” Dave Zylstra
On the hope and goal for the design of TOPS News: “Hopefully inspire them to want to keep flipping the pages and keep reading it.”
On any challenges facing him: “There’s always challenges… But no serious challenges that we couldn’t fix.” RD
On content creation : “There’s a large element of TOPS News is the member contributions. So that does definitely affect the scope of things, and the way we approach things.” BG
On the magazine being an experience: “There has to be a reason to engage with the magazine, and that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with every issue is to engage our members as fully as possible.” BG
On what he is expected to accomplish this year: “A year from now, what I would be telling you is that it would help with our revenue stream so we can provide more services to our members.” RD
And now for the lightly edited conversation with the team at TOPS News:
Screenshot
Samir Husni: Rick, can you give me the elevator pitch of TOPS News? TOPS News, not TOPS as the organization, the magazine.
Rick Danforth: I view TOPS News as our best vehicle to keep in constant contact with our members to share success stories and give them updated information on a healthy lifestyle.
Samir Husni: And why did you decide after 75 years to start taking advertising?
Rick Danforth: Well, that is because things are getting more costly and it was a way of generating some revenue.
Also, too, there was a misconception by past administrations that that wasn’t allowed by a non-profit. So it took a while to convince people that this is a legitimate concern and plus Jim (Elliott) was very instrumental in helping us with that process.
Samir Husni: Why do you think members should be interested in advertising as much as they are interested in editorial?
Rick Danforth: I think it’s another way for us to show them other information without just putting it out there in an editorial format or story to prompt them that it might catch their fancy and do a little research on their own.
Samir Husni: Barry, as an editor and publisher, you wear two hats. First, let me ask you the personal question.Which of the two hats do you prefer, editor or publisher?
Barry Gantenbein: Oh, well, that’s hard to say. I like being the publisher because then I have the final say in things. And one of the reasons that I became publisher was just to prevent any snags in meeting our deadlines.
When I had worked with publishers previously who had more than one job and did more than just be the publisher of the publication, sometimes there would be other priorities other than the magazine and I wanted to get rid of that sticking point. So that’s why I became the publisher. I like being the publisher for that reason.
But as far as the work and what I do mostly, I’m an editor and I have been doing that for a long time and I enjoy that type of work.
Samir Husni: So being the editor, let’s put the editor’s hat on. What’s the mission statement of TOPS News?
Barry Gantenbein: The one sentence is to provide our members with information and inspiration to make healthy choices.
I want to provide a variety of stories for our members. When you open up the TOC, there’s seven different headings. Those are the types of stories that we publish.
So our goal, we build a magazine on a frame and I use those seven sections to create those types of stories.
So if we have at least two in each section, then I know that we’re going to have a balanced offering for our members.
Samir Husni: Weight loss has been a topic for ages. There are so many commercial magazines and there are so many commercial drugs nowadays to help you lose weight.Where do you think you can navigate the magazine to balance between everything that’s taking place with weight loss these days?
Barry Gantenbein: I think that’s a good question. And that goes back to the start of TOPS.
We’ve always had a medical component as part of TOPS since the beginning. Our founder, Esther Manz, always wanted that component. When she started the magazine with her friends, they were all doing the same stuff and they were losing weight, and she wasn’t. So she was wondering, why is that? Why am I not losing weight? So she wanted to get a doctor involved in this so that she could better understand why they were losing weight and she wasn’t losing weight.
We don’t really take any stance on things like the different types of injectables now that are out there. We feel that if you are considering something like that, see your healthcare professional and get their advice on that.
We’re open to the shots, but that’s part of the overall health plan. And I think the one thing that really separates TOPS News is the group support, from the chapter level and also from the magazine. We try to always provide a community for our members so that they can be themselves, make healthy choices. We just really want our members to become the best version of themselves.
Samir Husni: Your last issue that I saw, the November-December, was all about bringing balance to your life. Does this balance now include the shots?
Barry Gantenbein: If it’s helpful to that particular member, because one thing that I have learned is that weight loss is a very individual thing, that what works for somebody may not work for somebody else. So that’s why we like to have a different variety of options available for people.
Samir Husni: And Dave, let me ask you about how do you take all these, I mean what Rick said, what Barry said, how do you design a publication for members as opposed to the general audience out there, or is there no difference?
Dave Zylstra: No, that’s a great question. I do definitely take into account our members. Our members are basically our core demographic, trying to think and trying to tap into their minds what they want to see.
So I actually, when I started, I sat down with my folks who are kind of a little older than our core demographic, but I sat down with them to see what magazines they’re reading, what they’re looking at, and what they want to see, and use that and glean some of that info to try to put that into the layout of the magazine. Also, using past issues, seeing what we’ve been doing, trying to update a little bit a more current design aesthetic. But really just hopefully trying to tap into what our demographic wants to see in the magazine, and hopefully inspire them to want to keep flipping the pages and keep reading it.
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Samir Husni: Rick, hearing what Dave said about listening to the members, and you just did a survey which had a big, huge response from the members.Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Rick Danforth: I was not surprised at the response as much as Jim was, because our members are very, very engaged, and I know that because every time I would meet members out at various events, the first thing they would say is, thank you for TOPS News. And I say, that’s okay. I tell them about the staff, and how Barry and Dave put it together.
I just stay out of their way. I provide content, and I get out of their way. But they say, this is the best issue ever, and I’m thinking, yeah, you’re right. I don’t know how they’re going to top this, and each time they keep on topping the previous one. So that tells me our members are engaged on what Barry and Dave are doing. As far as Barry making decisions on what goes in the issue, and how Dave portrays it so that it’s appealing to their eyes and catches them, and they can have that, bring that magazine to a meeting to help their discussions.
Samir Husni: So has it been a walk in a rose garden? Any challenges, or it is just a walk in the rose garden?
Rick Danforth: Nothing’s perfect. There’s always challenges, for example, our Canadian members saying, how come there weren’t enough Canadian stories in this particular issue? But there’s that balance that we try to provide all the way across. Another challenge if it’s a special theme issue that we might not have a Canadian angle into it. Others probably want more than six issues a year, but that’s our program right now.
But no serious challenges that we couldn’t fix.
Samir Husni: Barry, if you look at the images, the cover, I know it’s a reflection of the members, but is it in any way, shape, or form a hindrance? For example, like entering a national magazine awards, or competing with the magazines that are out there that put a different image on their cover?
Barry Gantenbein: When Dave talked about listening to our members, we rely on them for a lot of story ideas, and also for photos.
A large element of TOPS News is the member contributions. So that does definitely affect the scope of things, and the way we approach things. As far as the covers, we again talked about balance, and we try to have a balance.
We want to have balance between basically food, which is a huge part of the magazine, obviously, and then member photos. So we try to balance that, and balance where people are from. Like Rick had mentioned, our Canadian members, we always try to have at least one Canadian member featured in every story.
And then as one way to let our Canadian friends know that they are in the magazine, we started putting a red maple leaf in the TOC next to the Canadian stories. So when people say, hey there’s no Canadian stories, we’re like, there’s three in there. I can tell you that right now just by looking at those little maple leaves that are there.
So I think balance is a good way to describe what we’re trying to accomplish, and our approach to the magazine. It’s a balancing act. And do you consider TOPS News as a pioneer in the reader-generated content? Oh, I don’t know.
Like Dave said, my main goal is to provide information and make it entertaining. It has to be interesting. Dave and I both came from newspapers, and that overriding approach to newspapers was — no boring stories. There has to be a reason to engage with the magazine, and that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with every issue is to engage our members as fully as possible.
Samir Husni: And Dave, do you think this is easier or harder? I mean, having to deal with submitted photography, having to deal with submitted articles and…
Dave Zylstra: It’s harder. It’s been a challenge because not everyone understands high resolution. Not everyone understands what makes a good photo. And then, so just like accepting photos, sometimes it is a stab to the heart a little bit, like, couldn’t you have not taken that photo with all the stuff in the background.
So, but it is what it is, you know. We don’t have the budget nor the resources to go out and have professionals take every photo we need. So we are at the mercy of our members.
So it does. Definitely it is a challenge sometimes working with what we are sent. It’s a challenge I fully accept. At first I was like, oh man, what am I going to do with this? Because coming from, like Barry said, newspaper backgrounds, we’re using nice professional photos.
So coming here, at first, it was definitely a challenge. I mean, it still is a challenge. But I can only use what I have. I try to make them look good.
Barry Gantenbein: And also Dave serves as our staff photographer. Dave is an excellent photographer. We have members come in for, workouts in the magazine. We’ll have members come in to do the workouts. And Dave will be the photographer for the workouts.
Dave also is a photographer for the food shoots, for the recipes. So, when we have our transformations issue, where we honor the members who lost the most weight, we will hire professional photographers to take their portraits. So it’s a mixture of submitted stuff and professional photographs.
Samir Husni: So, Rick, Barry and Dave came from a journalism background and newspaper. You came from a microbiology background.How do you fit in the organization, you’re the president of this company, but what led you to be part of this organization?
Rick Danforth: Well, first, I was a member. Well, this week, I’ll be a member 23 years. And as I got into the organization and saw the benefits of it, it really helped me a lot. I lost 30% of my weight and I maintained about a 15% loss because it’s a struggle and it’s a disease. So when I left the world of microbiology, a lot of my friends were surprised.
And I said, why would you be surprised? I’ve been fighting various diseases for other folks. Obesity is disease. Now I got a chance to help a lot more people to battle this dreaded disease.So it was a natural fit for me. And I was involved in town politics and other things and trainings for the laboratory works. So it was a natural fit.I love getting on the stage and talking about TOPS to our members and non-members.
Samir Husni: So if you and I are having this conversation a year from now, what would you tell me that TOPS News with the new advertising acceptance have accomplished in this 2025?
Rick Danforth: A year from now, what I would be telling you is that it would help with our revenue stream so we can provide more services to our members. And that’s the main goal.
Samir Husni: The question that I have to ask always is, is there anything I failed to ask that you would like to ask ?
Barry Gantenbein: I’m thinking I’m used to doing the interviews, not being interviewed. So this is kind of an unusual spot for me. So that you didn’t ask.
I guess what I would say about the magazine, and that we’ve tried to do, is to make it a little more informal and make it more personal. That’s one thing that our members talk about. They said, since it’s become more personal and we use their first names, it’s Paula. It’s not Mrs. Livingston or Livingston. It’s Paula. And just be, I think that helps to forge a sense of community by making it more informal and more.
And one of the things that I like to explore more themes in the magazine. One of the main themes to me is after a while people figure out what works for them, but then why don’t we do what we know is good for us? We, after a while you figure out what sort of diet and what sort of exercise program you enjoy or works for you, but then sometimes people just don’t do it. Why is that? That’s something that we continually explore.
And I think that’s what makes it interesting because that’s an individual thing.
Samir Husni: So my typical last two questions are more on the personal side. If I come to visit you one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing? Watching TV, reading a book, cooking, having a glass of wine?
Rick Danforth: You’ll catch me at my desk working. And I’ve been told I’m doing that too much. They just want me to slow down a little bit. I eat with my wife.
Barry Gantenbein: I’m really lucky to have a wife who’s an excellent cook. So if you showed up in the evening, you’d probably be served pretty nice meals. I like to read and I would probably be reading later in the evening.
Samir Husni: And on paper or tablet?
Barry Gantenbein: Both. I do, I use a tablet, but there some books that I just like hard copy. If it’s got a lot of pictures, I like hard copy. If it is a novel, I can definitely read it on a tablet.
Samir Husni: Dave?
Dave Zylstra: That’s a great question. I have a lot of interests. I’m doing a lot of things, but on the average night, I’m usually cooking for my family.
I have two teenage daughters and I kind of am the house chef. So, with two teenage daughters, I feel like their childhood is fleeting and our family is fleeting. I’m trying, my wife and I are making a very concerted effort to spend as much time with them as we can right now.
So spending time in the kitchen with food and dinner. And then I do a lot of painting, so there’s a good chance I’ll be doing some painting after dinner. Maybe watching a movie with my wife. Pretty domesticated at the moment.
Samir Husni: My final typical question is, Rick, what keeps you up at night these days?
Rick Danforth: Wow. I worry a lot. So I’m always trying to figure out different scenarios where if this problem hits, I got this thing. So it’s just making sure that everybody has what they need to do their job.
And you know, the expression is lonely at the top. I got support, but it does still keep me up at night.
Barry Gantenbein: I would say just trying to figure out how to get things done. We have limited staff, so I rely on a lot of freelancers and friends of friends to do things for us. I’m always trying to figure out how we can get a story written or who can write a story for us or I joke that every single person that I know eventually ends up working for the magazine in some aspect, and that’s actually pretty true. We just signed a guy who’s a science writer, and he’s a former coworker of mine from newspaper days.
We signed a therapist to write for us, and she’s a friend of my wife. We’ve got an illustrator who went to high school with my daughter. These are the freelancers, and we’ve got just people that are friends of past staffers that believe in TOPS and work for us.
I’m always trying to figure out. I’m like a talent scout trying to figure out who can write and who can illustrate and who can help us out in any way and is willing to do it for little money. So that’s what keeps me up at night.
Samir Husni: What keeps you up at night, Barry, is TOPS.
Dave Zylstra: I love that. It’s always on Barry’s mind. This might sound bad, TOPS doesn’t keep me up at night. So that’s my answer is two teenage daughters.
You know, we recently, my older daughter is a junior in high school, so we recently started talking about college and basically financing college. It’s usually some type of money type of concerns, which I think is pretty standard, and very specifically like money for college. My younger daughter is talking about going to parochial school, so she did get some scholarship money for that, but also, so usually it’s some type of money.
And I should just say, my folks are getting up in age and their health isn’t the greatest.
“Quantity was down, but quality was up,” Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni
The aforementioned statement sums up the status of new magazine launches in 2024. Thirty-nine new launches and nine re-launches arrived on the marketplace together with more than 1,000 bookazines and mini-zines.
Leading the launches was Hiii, For People Who Partake, magazine, the brainchild of Rob Hill and Pam Patterson. Hiii floated to the top of the pack deserving the title the New Magazine Launch of the Year. It is one of the best new magazines to come to the marketplace in a long time. “Simply put, the weed genie will never be put back in the bong,” Rob wrote in the first issue’s introduction. Pam wrote, “This magazine is not just about marijuana. It’s about freedom, creativity, exploration, and supporting those who truly honor cannabis for its power and potential.” Hiii is excellent on all fronts: content, design, and photography.
Another great new magazine is Ori. The brainchild of Kade Krichko is a travel magazine from the source. Slow journalism at its best. Definitely a different, much needed, travel magazine that depends on writers and photographers from the countries it covers. “Travel is a form of connection,” reads the intro to the magazine, “not only with places and experiences, but with friends around the world.” Ori deserves to be the First Runner Up of New Magazine Launches.
The Second Runner Up of New Magazine Launches is RISE from A360 Media. The “Women in Sports” magazine adds a much needed platform for a sports platform dedicated to a large population of female sports players, led by Caitlin Clark, and spectators, both women and men. The magazine’s motto is a quote from Serena Williams, “The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you’re very courageous: Be strong, be extremely kind and above all, be humble.”
There are two other magazines worthy of note. New Christian Makers, a museum in a magazine, featuring the work of Christian makers from all fronts of life. “New Christian Makers is an in-print juried exhibition featuring the best in contemporary Christian making.” Highlights for Children continued its belief that children, even the under-two children, still enjoy a print magazine, thus they introduced their newest monthly mini magazine: Highlights CoComelon, “packed with all the CoComelon charm your little one adores, plus a sprinkle of extra learning fun.”
As for those magazines who opted to return to print after halting publication for few years, Field & Stream led the pack and earns the title the Re-Launch Magazine of the Year. Hands down, it is the best relaunch I have seen in my years of following and tracking the magazine industry. The magazine, established in1871 (yes, you read that right, 1871), is back in print through two “Legacy Stewards”: Country music superstars, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen. Editor-in-Chief Colin Kearns writes in the first relaunch issue, “One of the things I’ve missed most about producing a print edition of F&S has been the connection to you, our readers. Back in our print-magazine days, I’d get notes from readers all the time. But during these past few years, when there wasn’t a physical magazine, I never heard from you.”
Having said that, there were also two re-launches that were very well done, both in terms of content and design: SAVEUR and Spin. SAVEUR with its tag line, “Eat the World,” is back. “ It’s been four years since, remotely and in masks, we printed our last issue,” wrote EIC and CEO Kat Craddock in the return to print issue. She added, “But while corporate boardrooms posit print is dead,SAVEUR is one of a growing number of publications that have decided to prove them wrong.”
SPIN, “Well, it’s been a while,” writes editor Bob Guccione, Jr. in the relaunch issue, “A while since SPIN last printed an issue (12 years) and it’s then owner – I had no idea who that was, this magazine, like a haunted house, has changed hands a lot…” He added, “Then along came Jimmy Hutcheson and his Next Management Partners and they bought SPIN from its last owner, and set about revitalizing it…” This SPIN, writes Bob, is “the Phoeix-like rise from long cold magazine ashes.”
I started this blog by saying the quality was up and the aforementioned magazines are a testament for this.
Two other re-launches are worthy of note: Flow and Nylon. The Dutch import, Flow “The Magazine That Takes Its Time. Celebrating A Conscious, Slow And Creative Life,” is back on the newsstands. Nylon celebrated its 25th Anniversary by returning to print. “ I like to think of this 25th anniversary issue, our triumphant return to print…” ,” writes editor-in-chief Lauren McCarthy.
As long as there are new magazines launched and relaunched, regardless of the numbers, print is alive and well… Here’s to a healthy and wealthy print 2025. Cheers.
Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, Ph.D.
P.S.: Thinking of launching or relaunching a magazine? Be sure to send me a copy to include the crop of 2025. Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 776 Shady Oaks Circle, Oxford, MS 38655. Thank you.
Flow, the magazine that was born in an attic in the Netherlands in 2008, gained the world’s attention for its beauty, elegance, and giving its audience a time for themselves in a very slow but conscience and creative presentation.
What can easily be described as a magnet to paper lovers, returns to the shores of the United States and another 20 English speaking countries after suspending publication in English following COVID 19 in 2020.
The articles in the magazine, the photography, and the illustrations are all printed on paper that corresponds to the nature of the article or illustration. The genius idea of Irene Smit, the cofounder and creative director of Flow, with business partner Astrid van der Hulst, cofounder and former editor in chief of the magazine.
When the magazine arrived on the newsstands in the Netherlands, the skeptics who doubted a “me time magazine,” will survive were stunned by the sales numbers. Flow continued to grow in the Netherlands and beyond. Now in four languages(Dutch, German, French and English) and multiple international editions, the magazine is back on the United States newsstands.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Irene Smit, the cofounder and creative director of Flow via Zoom in her office in the Netherlands. What follows is the lightly edited interview with Irene Smit, but first the soundbites:
On the elevator pitch of Flow: “Flow is about slowing down and living a conscious life.”
On the challenges that forced the suspension of Flow in 2020: “The challenges brought by COVID-19 proved insurmountable. Skyrocketing paper prices and exorbitant distribution costs, combined with widespread shop closures worldwide, made continuing the magazine untenable.”
On the timing of the return of the English edition of Flow: “Last year, Flow Magazine was sold to another publishing house, Roularta Media. They were enthusiastic about restarting the international edition, which was exciting for us.”
On the feedback during Flow’s suspension: “What’s truly heartwarming is that even during the years we were away, we continued to receive letters and messages on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.”
On Flow’s target audience: “In a time of increasing polarization, many found comfort in Flow’s community—people who cherish crafting, paper, and positivity.”
On the genesis of the Flow idea: “People were growing tired of the “more, better, quicker” mentality. Instead, they seemed to crave a simpler, more authentic way of life.”
On the power of print in a digital age: “After years dominated by digital devices like iPhones and iPads, people are rediscovering the value of paper. It resonates particularly with Gen Z and millennials, who are increasingly seeking ways to step away from their screens.”
On Flow’s mission: “Flow has always been about: nurturing your mind through creativity and incorporating positive psychology into everyday life.”
And now for the lightly edited conversation with Irene Smit, cofounder and creative director of Flow magazine:
Irene Smit
Samir Husni: What’s the elevator pitch of Flow?
Irene Smit: Flow is about slowing down and living a conscious life.
When we started Flow (myself and business partner Astrid van der Hulst) in 2008 magazines weren’t about those topics. They were all about more, better, like what social media is now. We already knew what the world wanted before the world wanted it, a place to slow down and to live a conscious life, and that’s what we still offer in the magazine.
Samir Husni: You publish several international editions. You have one in France, you have one in Germany, and you brought an edition to the States. Because of COVID, you had to suspend the International edition. Now you are bringing it back. Why now? And what are some of the reasons for this relaunch?
Irene Smit: Shortly after launching the Dutch version, we began receiving numerous letters from people who had come across it at the airport. They all praised the magazine, saying it looked stunning and had a unique tactile appeal due to the variety of papers used. However, many added, “We don’t really understand what it’s about.” This feedback prompted us to create an English-language edition in the Netherlands.
At its peak in 2020, just before the onset of COVID-19, the magazine was published and distributed in 34 countries. We had licensed German and French editions, while the English edition was produced in-house. This version was developed in the Netherlands with support from English-speaking translators and editors.
However, the challenges brought by COVID-19 proved insurmountable. Skyrocketing paper prices and exorbitant distribution costs, combined with widespread shop closures worldwide, made continuing the magazine untenable. A new publishing company had just acquired us and we decided to stop producing the English issue, and unfortunately weren’t able to start it up again.
But last year, Flow Magazine was sold to another publishing house, Roularta Media. They were enthusiastic about restarting the international edition, which was exciting for us. This summer, we finally made it happen. The magazine will now be published twice a year and distributed across 20 countries. This allows us to gradually grow and adapt to modern distribution methods.
What’s truly heartwarming is that even during the years we were away, we continued to receive letters and messages on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Our Facebook group for Paper Lovers has been especially active. Fans would often ask, “Can you please bring back the English edition? You’re my paper inspiration, my ‘Paper porn.’ I miss you so much!” Some even joked about learning Dutch or French just to stay connected with us. Whenever we posted updates, our many international followers would respond, urging us to return to the U.S., New Zealand, or Australia.
Last year, more and more people were expressing that the world truly needs Flow. They emphasized the importance of spreading a positive message of hope and offering ways to care for ourselves in this fast-paced, often overwhelming world. Flow Magazine has always been about fostering a sense of community, bringing people together, and celebrating creativity. In a time of increasing polarization, many found comfort in Flow’s community—people who cherish crafting, paper, and positivity.
With so many asking for Flow’s return, we realized that now is the perfect time to bring it back.
Samir Husni: If you can go back to 2008, tell me a little bit about how you and your business partner came up with the idea and how did you start this magazine? My understanding that you were in your attic?
Irene Smit: Yes, we were. We were both working for Marie Claire, a glossy magazine that was part of Sanoma Publishers.
One day, we were on the attic when Anita Mooiweer, the new business manager of Sanoma, mentioned, “We feel there’s a need for a different kind of magazine, but we’re not sure what. Could you help us think of a new concept?” Inspired, Astrid and I gathered a variety of paper goodies—things we loved, like stationery and notebooks—from children’s bookstores and sat down to brainstorm.
Both of us shared a deep love for paper. After years of working on glossy magazines, we felt that by 2008—just before the economic crisis—society was shifting. People were growing tired of the “more, better, quicker” mentality. Instead, they seemed to crave a simpler, more authentic way of life.
We noticed that people no longer yearned for more designer clothes or extravagant vacations. Instead, they valued meaningful gestures, for example, like a homemade apple pie from a friend. Those personal, heartfelt moments held more worth than expensive luxuries. Inspired by this, we set out to create a magazine that we would want to read ourselves—something entirely different from what was already available.
At the time, we had just completed a mindfulness-based stress reduction course. It taught us profound life lessons: letting go of perfectionism, accepting ourselves, cultivating a beginner’s mind, and appreciating the little things in life. We realized our magazine should reflect these principles. It should celebrate life’s small joys and offer guidance on navigating lessons that traditional schooling never taught us.
We wanted to learn and share these life lessons with others. That idea became the heart of our magazine. It combined everything we loved—poems, stories about inspiring women, history, and articles that helped us better understand the world and ourselves better.
Samir Husni: And you decided to use a variety of paper in the magazine. It was not one paper stock. The magazine is known for the variety of paper from tissue paper to glossy paper?
Irene Smit: Yes.
Samir Husni: Why do you think this was the choice and what’s the power of print today in this digital age?
Irene Smit: We decided to use a variety of papers because paper is so much more than just a medium for printing text. The tactile feel, the scent—it evokes emotions and can transport you to a different state of mind. For instance, when presenting an article filled with images, glossy paper is ideal. Its shiny, eye-catching quality adds a sense of indulgence, almost like visual candy.
On the other hand, if the article is about confronting personal challenges or pitfalls, a rougher paper feels more appropriate. The texture itself mirrors the subject matter—it’s a bit raw, a bit tough—adding a layer of depth that complements the article’s tone and content.
Today, paper has re-emerged as a luxury product. After years dominated by digital devices like iPhones and iPads, people are rediscovering the value of paper. It resonates particularly with Gen Z and millennials, who are increasingly seeking ways to step away from their screens. Many of them feel the need to reclaim their time and reduce their reliance on phones, often spending hours daily glued to their devices.
This reconnection with paper is beautiful. Younger generations, who grew up immersed in the digital world, are finding joy in treating themselves to offline moments. Whether it’s reading a magazine, journaling, or crafting a mood or vision board, they’re rediscovering the simple pleasures of print. It’s akin to the resurgence of vinyl records; just as people have fallen in love with playing records again, I believe the next step will be a revival of magazine reading.
Samir Husni: That’s good. So, tell me, was it more like a walk in a rose garden or you had some challenges you had to overcome?
Irene Smit: We had a lot of challenges. I wish it was a walk in a rose garden.
In the beginning, it was almost amusing how few people believed in our potential for success. Critics scoffed, claiming we could only fill two or three issues with content. Many doubted it would work long-term.
Some even complained about the empty pages, saying they weren’t willing to pay for blank space. But we stayed true to our vision, deciding to do things our own way.
To our delight, the magazine sold exceptionally well. To all the skeptics, we simply said, “It’s fine to doubt us, but the numbers speak for themselves.” After the first decade of success, while many other magazines started to decline, we remained stable and even thrived.
We were thrilled to still be riding that wave of positivity. However, the past five or six years have been more challenging. The pandemic forced us to pause the English edition, and switching publishers twice added further complications. Creating this product is incredibly time-consuming, and downsizing our team has made the process even more demanding.
Despite these hurdles, we continue to pour our hearts into this magazine. We believe in crafting the best product possible, and we think our audience can feel that passion. This connection is why so many people are eager for its return.
It’s heartwarming to see such enthusiasm. In fact, the English edition seems to have gained an almost mythical status during its absence. People are eager to bring it back, and our Book for Paper Lovers has been equally beloved—it’s a magazine without articles, filled solely with beautiful paper.
We’ve collaborated with Workman Publishing in the U.S. to produce various projects, such as A Book That Takes Its Time, along with stationery and puzzles. Now, as we prepare for our return, Workman Publishing has expressed interest in new books featuring stickers and stationery.
It hasn’t been an easy journey, but we’re on the upswing. With the English edition back on newsstands, we’re hopeful it will be warmly received. Our message of comfort, compassion, and care for one another feels more relevant than ever. We believe this is the perfect moment for our comeback.
Samir Husni: When you launched the magazine, you were all alone. What was your feeling when you saw all those competitors sprouting like mushrooms on the newsstand worldwide?
Irene Smit: Yes, it was challenging. I think in the Netherlands, the situation was manageable. However, in Germany, there were times when we faced competition from 10 or 15 rivals simultaneously. That was definitely frustrating.
Even so, I believe people can recognize when something is created with genuine passion and originality. We’ve always aimed to innovate and bring fresh ideas to the table. Over time, people continued to view Flow as the original, standing out with its unique products. I don’t think the imitations are as good as ours, and I believe people can sense that.
Samir Husni: Who’s your target audience? Whom are you trying to reach with Flow?
Irene Smit: It’s funny, we always said we have a very broad audience, everybody that likes our topics is welcome.
These days, many young people are deeply interested in our topic. From the very beginning, Flow has been about mental health, although we didn’t use that term back in 2008. At the time, nobody really talked about mental health. Instead, we focused on mindfulness and caring for your mind.
It wasn’t until after COVID that mental health became a common topic of conversation. That’s when I realized—this is what Flow has always been about: nurturing your mind through creativity and incorporating positive psychology into everyday life.
Now, many young readers turn to Flow specifically for its mental health articles. At the same time, we continue to have a large audience of readers in their 50s and 60s, making it a truly broad and diverse community.
Samir Husni: That’s good. So what’s your motto now? Is it like “Go with the Flow?”
Irene Smit: Yes, it’s still “Go with the Flow”. We just keep going with the Flow.
We try to sense what people want to read, what they want to hear, and how we can help them in life. Every day feels different, as the world changes so quickly.
We aim to keep up with all these changes, but we go with the flow, embracing the opportunities that come our way—like restarting the English edition. I think that approach works best for Flow.
Samir Husni: Before I ask you my last two typical questions, is there any question I failed to ask you that I should ask you or anything you would like to add?
Irene Smit: You should have asked, “Where is Astrid?” She left. She’s now a primary school teacher. It was very sad because we started this together.
We’re still both parents of Flow, but she’s found something else that suits her life better. She loves teaching and doesn’t want the pressure of all these deadlines anymore. Now, she has found the right balance—she’s a teacher, but still writes articles for the magazine.
I’m happy she’s still involved with Flow.
Samir Husni: If I would come uninvited one evening to your house, what would I catch Irene doing, reading a book, watching TV, having a glass of wine, cooking?
Irene Smit: I’m always striving to improve my life, just like everyone who reads this magazine.
Recently, I started the course The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and as part of that, I’ve been making an effort to spend less time on my phone. Last night, I worked on creating a vision board.
I cut out images from old Flow magazines—both the German and French editions—because it’s difficult for me to cut out from the Dutch edition. I still find that challenging. So, I used illustrations from the French and German versions to create a vision board focused on my future—on what I want to achieve and the experiences I’d like to have with Flow.
I continue to make an effort to stay connected with paper as much as possible, but sometimes, I admit, I get caught up in my phone or the television. Hopefully, you’ll find me engaged with paper when the moment is right.
Samir Husni: My typical final question, what keeps Irene up at night these days?
Irene Smit: I am deeply committed to supporting young people with their mental health. It’s tough to see how much they struggle, and I always try to find ways to help.
Whether through the magazine or collaborations like the one of Flow with the Museum of the Mind in Haarlem, the Netherlands, where we have a permanent Flow Slow Art Tour, I focus on providing programs that support their mental well-being.
The legacy of cannabis and the legacy of magazines collide to introduce The Other magazine: A magazine devoted to cannabis, its dispensaries, and the customers who partake in enjoying the plant that for years has been the forbidden fruit. With more states legalizing cannabis for recreational use, magazines devoted to the once forbidden plant are sprouting across the nation.
The Other is the latest entry into the cannabis consumer magazines serving the audience of the Hudson Valley in New York State and New York City. Peter Shafran, the founder and witty publisher, has high (pun intended) hopes for The Other. His wit is evident in the cover of the first issue. Take a look at the cover and read what he had to see about it:
“So if you look closely at the mountains, you’ll see that they’re not really mountains. It’s all cannabis. And the bridge, the base of each of the bridges are bongs, or at least the big bridge in the back is.
And this is all based on a real photograph. The big bridge is the Bear Mountain Bridge, which goes over the Hudson River, but the two boats floating on there, one is just a pipe, and the other one is a pipe, it is a boat with a puff on it.
The small bridge in the front, which is the bridge that takes you over the Taconic State Parkway, all those little side things, those are all joints. So when I bring this into the dispensary and I tell people, you know, so do you like the mountains? And they’re like, oh yeah, I like the mountains. I was like, do you really like the mountains?”
I had the opportunity to interview Peter, and his strategic communications consultant, magazine veteran, Stu Zakim. But first the soundbites:
On the name of the magazine: “The title of the magazine hearkens back to a newspaper that came out in 1968 called the East Village Other. It was one of the first underground countercultural newspapers in the country.”
More on the name of the magazine: “But the reason we chose that name is because we as cannabis consumers have always felt that we were on the outside, we’re the others.”
On the reasons the magazine is regional: “We felt that the regional way was the way to go, because especially in the cannabis industry, much of the industry is vertically aligned in terms of the growing, the processing, the distributing and the retail is all contained in New York.”
On why The Other is in print: “Well, tactile. It really is. In other words, cannabis has its legacy. So do print magazines. And I think there’s a marriage there.”
On the mission of the magazine: “The conversation has changed so that we’re focusing more on the lifestyle, the alternatives, the education, the normalization and destigmatization.”
On the status of the cannabis industry: “The cannabis industry is so much mainstream now that they’re providing a portion of the revenue to these towns and villages that they never saw before, or at least haven’t seen since manufacturing was here.”
On the future plans of the magazine: “I really have no desire to go into California, Colorado, Massachusetts, or any of those places. What I’m looking for is a place like New Jersey, which has two or three years of growth. There is no magazine in New Jersey that does what we do.”
On the role of The Other: “It’s a wonderful place to be in because we’re past what we used to call the wild, wild West. But now it is a functioning, growing economy, and we’re able to be there at the ground level and helping make it flourish.”
And now for the lightly edited interview with Peter Shafran, founder and publisher of The Other:
Samir Husni: Congratulations on the launch of The Other.
Peter Shafran: Thank you.
Samir Husni: Would you please give me the elevator pitch of The Other and tell me what’s the idea behind the name?
Peter Shafran: Oh, sure. The magazine is a countercultural lifestyle magazine for people in the Hudson Valley, in New York City, for people who enjoy cannabis and other lifestyle things like psychedelics and the whole lifestyle. The magazine is a consumer magazine.
Unlike most of the magazines that are out there in the community, which are B2B magazines, this is a lifestyle consumer magazine. Though there is a little bit of a space here for another business magazine. So we’re going to add some industry focus on there as well.
I live in the Hudson Valley, which is why we started here and I grew up here. The title of the magazine hearkens back to a newspaper that came out in 1968 called the East Village Other. It was one of the first underground countercultural newspapers in the country, which spurred on the development of other countercultural magazines in Berkeley and Chicago and a couple of other places.
That became the beginnings of the underground movement in the 60s. The people who wrote for the East Village Other were all the top minds and writers of the 1960s and the anti-war and revolutionary writers. So we hearken back to that to give them some props.
But the reason we chose that name is because we as cannabis consumers have always felt that we were on the outside, we’re the others. And even in terms of where we are today in the industry, probably not before a year or two ago was cannabis really discussed among real people, among my friends. I’ve been living in this village for 18 years and people did not discuss cannabis openly, definitely because of the stigma attached to it. We are all parents and we don’t want our kids to talk about it and stuff like that.
So it really has only been in the last couple of years where that openness, and of course, the legalization in New York and the opening up of cannabis dispensaries has changed the whole landscape. It has changed the conversation. We felt there was a vacuum here and we’re hoping to fill it.
Samir Husni: Why did you decide to fulfill that vacuum via ink on paper in this digital age?
Peter Shafran: Well, basically, because I’m insane. Nobody in their right mind would do this, but the reality is that the regional magazines and local magazines are actually flourishing. The national magazines, especially in fringe areas, have a hard time in attracting advertisers and attracting money. We felt that the regional way was the way to go, because especially in the cannabis industry, much of the industry is vertically aligned in terms of the growing, the processing, the distributing and the retail is all contained in New York.
The New York focus was really helping us to find that we want to make a regional magazine. But the eventual goal that “if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere,” to quote Frank Sinatra.
Samir Husni: Besides the fact that regional magazines are doing well, what do you think is the power of print in this digital age? What do you offer your readers, your customers?
Peter Shafran: (Holding the magazine in both hands)Well, tactile. It really is.
The response has been unbelievable. I’ve been driving around to dispensaries within a half hour, 45 minute radius. The magazine’s been out a week.
Every place I go, I wear my shirt or I wear my hat (with the magazine name on them). I walk into the dispensary and one of the workers in the dispensary says, I know that logo. Where did I see it before? Is this where you saw it? And every single bud tender, every single person in the dispensary is like, wow, this is really cool.
Why hasn’t somebody done this before? We’re seeing that from across the spectrum, from the readers to everybody we’ve seen. We went to, Stu and I, and a couple of members of the team went to Reveille Buyers Club a couple of weeks ago when we started talking about the magazine. The magazine hadn’t even been out yet, and the buzz around it was huge because nobody else is doing it.
Stu: There’s another cannabis title out here, but it’s newsprint. Unlike Peter’s point of a tactile and the beauty. A slick, glossy, four-color publication in an era where, to your earlier point, things living digitally is amazing, number one.
It’s an emotional attachment, which I think we all have. The newsprint book has never taken off. You know, it’s not well designed.
It looks like a high school project. When people see The Other at the retailers, at the point of sale, where they pay for the products, curiosity will definitely attract them. They’ll see this gorgeous cover, which in itself has a little gimmick built into it.
Peter, I don’t know if you’ve explained that or not. And, you know, the demographics of the cannabis consumer are me and Peter. And, you know, not that we’re old men, but we grew up in the, we grew up with magazines and the role they played in all of our lives was very central.
So it’s, in other words, cannabis has its legacy. So do print magazines. And I think there’s a marriage there. That’s one thing that’s going to work to their advantage.
But the reality is that community with a big C is really what we are looking forward to becoming the community focus for this region.
Samir Husni: How is The Other different than the cannabis magazines of the 70s and 80s, such as High Times, Inside Dope, The Weed Journal and all these titles that were published before it became legal?
Peter Shafran: Very easy answer. Before we didn’t have dispensaries. So the curiosity, ooh, let’s see what cannabis looks like.
And you’ve got these beautiful pictures, now we call it cannabis, but the whole industry has become such that the curiosity to see something in a magazine, first of all, you can see anything you want on the web. So you don’t need to see beautiful pictures of a bud. Now, of course we have, but I have buds in my background of my pictures, more of a joke than anything else.
The realization is that we have evolved from that point where we’re curious about what bud looks like, because you can walk into any dispensary and see exactly what bud looks like. The conversation has changed so that we’re focusing more on the lifestyle, the alternatives, the education, the normalization and destigmatization.
Also one of the things that New York has going for it that some other states don’t have, is a very strong social justice part of the industry where specifically it was designed to let mom and pops come into the dispensaries and to the growers and the processors and not the multi-states which are coming in, but the mom and pops have the stronghold.
They’re already in here. They’ve been nurtured and they’re growing and developing. So it’s a lot different than it was in the seventies.
Samir Husni: You mentioned in your magazine introduction that the Hudson Valley have changed from what used to be a pumpkin growing area to a cannabis growing area.What’s the reaction of the consumers? Has it been accepted now? Is it just a matter of fact?
Peter Shafran: Number one, New York has the highest use of cannabis than any other place in the world, in terms of per capita. Number two, growing up in the Hudson Valley, my father was a home builder. And the three things that they used to say are going to bring this area back is an international airport.
Well, we have that in Newburgh. High-speed rail, we don’t have it. Casino gambling, we don’t really have it. There’s one or two places around here, but all the things that they promised were going to happen to revitalize the economy in New York, never really happened in those terms.
What’s going on now in cannabis in New York is just incredible. Between the processes and the growers and everybody else that’s coming in here, the jobs and the local towns, the villages, the municipalities, the development corporations, they’re seeing real growth.
It’s not just the dispensaries. They’re employing 500 people at a facility when nobody else is putting these shovels in the ground to build processing plants, to build grow houses and things like that. So even the most right-wing conservative politicians and people who follow them are saying, well, wait a second, you’re building construction jobs, permanent jobs, money coming into the community, both in terms of sales and retail, but also in terms of taxes.
The cannabis industry is so much mainstream now that they’re providing a portion of the revenue to these towns and villages that they never saw before, or at least haven’t seen since manufacturing was here. But going back to the pumpkins and apples, there are still plenty of pumpkins and apples, but several of the smart people in agriculture, like the Hepworths, for example, realized that this is coming and had the foresight to say, let’s start growing. So people who were worried about surviving in the agricultural field now have a secondary and sometimes a primary source of income that is not related to pumpkins and apples.
There’s a company called Ayrloom, which started out as an apple grower, one of the most successful apple growers. And still is. They make delicious apple cider. Well, now they make really good apple cider with a little bit of a hint inside. And I’m a fan.
I happen to love their honey crisp apple cider, which is just absolutely delicious. But here’s a company who been growing apples for a hundred years, and all of a sudden grew into one of the major players in the region. So from the economic standpoint, it’s fantastic for the Hudson Valley. It’s fantastic for the state of New York.
Samir Husni: Do you envision seeing more of lifestyle advertisement or are you on purpose sticking to the advertisement from the cannabis industry?
Peter Shafran: No, we’re actually going about 50-50. That’s our focus now.
We’re hoping to do that in the next round of advertising. But we’re looking at our magazine as more of a lifestyle magazine rather than a cannabis magazine. And the difference is that we’re talking to advertisers and saying, we have a base of probably 250,000 readers geographically in this region.
And that’s not to mention New York City, but just 250,000 people who can read the magazine in the area. And guess what? They buy cars. And guess what? They buy cookies, and they buy candy, and they buy all kinds of things that they want to eat after they smoke.
So we’re approaching the snack companies, the insurance agencies. I mean, we are a niche lifestyle brand, but the numbers are just too hard to ignore.
Stu Zakim : If you look at the other categories, Samir, for advertising, one of the biggest growth areas as an ancillary to the cannabis is cannabis tourism, where they’re taking people from the city or wherever.
They pay a lot of money to go on this tour bus. They come up. They check out the farm. They get to see the fields. And there’s hospitality. There’s hotels that are, since it is legal, welcoming this new population for them because it’s a new customer base.
And rather than having a chocolate on your pillow at night, you may have an infused chocolate on your pillow. And they can serve infused beverage. All this stuff is an offshoot of what Peter’s been talking about with the growth in the industry.
And the other categories, to his point, if we just restricted ourselves to dispensaries and farms, there won’t be any revenue. It’s these ancillary categories that are more normal to regular publications that are actually, as the consumer, it’s not cheap to be a cannabis consumer. So you have to have a lot of extra income, which is the same logic when Rolling Stone transitioned from their newsprint and they became a slick glossy, they went after cars and autos and fashion and beauty and other lifestyle categories who felt more comfortable living in a magazine that had that feel to it and also the kind of customer readership that they had.
Samir Husni: Peter, before I ask you my typical personal last questions, is there any question I failed to ask you or anything you would like to add?
Peter Shafran: Good question.
The growth model that we see here is, you know, in answer to one of your previous questions about why we go regional, I think that this model can be replicated in other areas. I’m not looking to become a national magazine. I’m looking to make The Other something that can be duplicated in certain areas, especially in new growth areas.
I really have no desire to go into California, Colorado, Massachusetts, or any of those places. What I’m looking for is a place like New Jersey, which has two or three years of growth. There is no magazine in New Jersey that does what we do.
There are very few places that do this kind of magazine, which is why I go back to the point of being insane. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, but the reality is the buzz around the magazine has been huge. And we’re just seeing fantastic replies and the growth in just in our Instagram page in the last couple of days has just been explosive.
Our model was providing free magazines and putting them in every single dispensary in our region. So we distributed 5,600 magazines in one week to dispensaries and ancillary places. And in one week, we’re already getting responses: We need more magazines.
In addition to being a magazine, we have realized that what we can become and what we’re really launching towards is becoming the backbone of a community. There are groups out there that have networking events and they have little things in here, but there is nothing here that is really containing in terms of the lifestyle and the advertising and the culture for this region.
What we’re finding is when we talked to a couple of dispensary owners in the last couple of weeks, and I floated the idea about starting a dispensary owners roundtable. Every single one that I spoke to said, I’m in, tell me when you want to do it. And last week, in bringing the magazine to different places, I said to the bud tenders, what do you think about having a bud tender event of the month? Like, yeah, you want to do it? If you’re going to be providing something free, we’ll all come.
But the reality is that community with a big C is really what we are looking forward to becoming the community focus for this region.
Samir Husni: Excellent. Well, my typical last two questions are if I come to visit you unannounced one evening, what do I catch Peter doing? Smoking a joint, drinking a glass of wine, watching TV, reading a book?
Peter Shafran: Well, so the easy answer is that I have become over the last year or two, more of a, maybe not a connoisseur, but I’m learning how to become a connoisseur.
But what I found is that prior to my involvement in the magazine, and prior to probably two years ago, I used to have a glass of wine with dinner every night. I haven’t opened up a bottle of wine unless company is coming for about six months, maybe more. I’ve had a sip of beer just to taste it in the last couple of months.
So one day I’ll roll a joint and smoke it. And the next day I’ll smoke out of a pipe or a bottle or I’ll do a gummy. The wonderful thing is that we live in a society right now where choice is unbelievable. It was whatever the guy had is what you got for 40 bucks. You got an ounce of whatever he had, whether it was terrible or not, it was what you got.
And now you go in for to any dispensary and you got two, three, 400, a thousand skews of products and it’s dizzying. That’s one of the things that we can provide is that benefit to say, we’ll give you reviews. We’ll show you what’s out there.
It’s a wonderful place to be in because we’re past what we used to call the wild, wild West. But now it is a functioning, growing economy, and we’re able to be there at the ground level and helping make it flourish.
Samir Husni: My typical last question to you is what keeps Peter up at night these days?
Peter Shafran: Well, of course keeping the magazine funded. We wanted to get the business of the magazine up so that that could be our tent pole to be able to use in other areas. We have a newsletter coming out, an online presence, and the live events, which will provide streams of income to be able to fund everything together. But until that happens, it’s hard to go to sleep at night. But I just take a gummy and I’m fine.
Samir Husni: Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time.
StuZakim: But as a hardcore magazine person, you know, the, the role of this format has been diminished over time. And here, I think it takes courage in this rather tough market to break out a new title. To your point about the earlier titles of High Times and all that shit that’s another generation.
We’re in a new world now. And if not only educate people about it to help eradicate the stigma against cannabis, educate people about the beauty of the magazine format and why photography jumps off the page. I mean, look at that cover.
You’ll never see that in a newspaper where it catches your attention as you walk by and bringing this to a whole new group of people who haven’t really grown up with it the way we did. So, you know, whenever you get to it, it’s fine. I would appreciate the, the forum, the platform, and as you know, I’m, I’m just really thrilled that this conversation is taking place.
Viktorija Pashuta, the founder, CEO, and editor in chief of BASIC magazine, left her home country, Latvia, with a little book that she started writing her ideas in it at age 11. Her dream was that one day she would create all the ideas in that book. One of the ideas must have been BASIC magazine: an upscale magazine that is anything but basic.
Also an award-winning director and film maker, Viktorija Pashuta launched BASIC magazine seven years ago in Los Angeles as “a print platform for artists from all over the world to express themselves and give them the opportunity to share their artwork and their passions on the pages of the print magazine.”
I was so impressed by the quality of the magazine and the way it has progressed since its launch. Flipping through the pages of BASIC was like taking a first-class trip around the world, luscious photography accompanied by imaginative design and complemented by beautiful typography. It is a delight for both the eye and the brain.
A photographer by profession, Ms. Pashuta is also a writer who combines the art of audio-visual writing to her editorials that introduce every issue of the magazine. She is a dreamer and she is more than willing to share her dreams with you. When I asked her what she would be doing if I stop by unannounced, she told me that, “sometimes you could catch me doing something weird like I imagine I’m a batman and I’ll go outside in the dark streets and just walk around at night and there would be someone who needs my help randomly.”
It was hard to separate her drive for life and adventure from her passion and zeal for BASIC magazine. So, please join me with this wonderful conversation with Viktorija Pashuta, founder, CEO and editor in chief of BASIC magazine. But first, the soundbites:
On why print: “I’m really proud that BASIC is actually in print, not in digital…It was really important to create a physical product, a magazine that has the presence in the physical world.”
On how to do print today: “The idea was to invest in the quality of the paper, invest in the quality of binding, invest in talent, create content that is timeless and you wouldn’t easily find online.”
On the challenges of creating a magazine: “If I knew then what I had to go through, I’d probably think twice if I should start a print magazine…it’s not enough just to have the funds. You also have to be extremely passionate about it and live with it.”
More on challenges of creating a magazine: “There were definitely challenges creating content that would resonate online and also would be relevant in print because these are two complete different platforms.”
On sources of revenue: “I created different avenues with the product placement that we utilize the smaller brands and provided them additional value by creating unique organic content for them within the pages of the magazine.
On appearing on the cover of the magazine: “That actually was very unplanned and I’m a person that would never put myself on a cover because I thought that’s sort of abusing your power.”
More on appearing on the cover of the magazine: “I thought if you use yourself as the main inspiration I think it will give inspiration for other people to believe in themselves and keep going with whatever ventures they enter.”
On finding the BASIC DNA: “We’re trying to shape our own voice which I think was the hardest thing and I think for any brand it’s really hard to stand out in the crowd so that’s kind of our goal been to find our DNA, to find BASIC DNA and to really stick to it and be authentic.”
On her life’s philosophy: “The most talented people are very humble and they don’t really want to push themselves. The loudest people on social media are usually the least talented.”
More on her life’s philosophy: “I’m a hardcore fan of the cat woman, so I believe being behind the scenes and being that savior for those who cannot speak for themselves and elevate people. I would love to do more charity work. I would love to help more people.”
And now for the lightly edited conversation with Viktorija Pashuta, founder and editor in chief of BASIC magazine:
Samir Husni: As I told you in my email BASIC is anything but BASIC. Tell me the elevator pitch. What is BASIC magazine?
Viktorija Pashuta: Well, BASIC, first of all, it’s my passion project.
This is something I’ve been craving and wanted to do since I was in high school. And pretty much it’s a platform that provides opportunity for artists from all over the world to express themselves and to give them that opportunity to share their artwork and their passions on the pages of print magazine. And I’m really proud that BASIC is actually in print, not in digital.
So we take pride creating such a publication that became sort of a coffee table book and collectible edition. So yeah, like you said, absolutely right. BASIC is everything but BASIC.
Samir Husni: You wrote that while others are abandoning print and are going digital, and with the high increase of paper costs, mailing costs, you name it. Why is this print drive that you have?
Viktorija Pashuta: Well, I think I believe that nowadays there is such a high demand for interpersonal connections, for physical products, for physical touch, especially in our modern age of technology and of desensitization of the society, of people not being willing to connect in person or they really craving to have personal interpersonal experiences. So for me, it was really important to create a physical product, a magazine that has the presence in the physical world.
Besides that, I believe that the pages transcend the experiences that we go through creating the magazine. What’s really important is being on set, creating a community, working with passionate people with the same interests and sharing those passions with the world through the print publication. I’ve noticed that trend, especially being myself constantly on social media, that you have those two, three seconds to look at the post, like the post and you forget about it.
But the beauty about print publication, it’s something you look through, but then you put it in a shelf, you can get back to it later. You can look through it and you have this connection that digital can never substitute.
I always have a comparison. Would you like to have a digital kiss or a physical, actual kiss? And the same with print. We want that interpersonal connection. It’s very similar to the luxury sector where we want to have luxury products, luxury experiences, and the same with print.
The idea was to invest in the quality of the paper, invest in the quality of binding, invest in talent, create content that is timeless and you wouldn’t easily find online. So that was the goal. And for me, it was extremely important to create a physical product and have basic in print.
Samir Husni: It sounds like you have had in the last seven years since you launched BASIC, a walk in the old garden, or was there some challenges, there were some thorns across the road?
Viktorija Pashuta: Oh, absolutely. I mean, every step of the way, there was a challenge starting from the fact that when I was getting myself into print, I had zero knowledge in publishing, zero knowledge in printing, zero knowledge in logistics.
All I knew is photography since I started to be a fashion photographer and experience in writing since I was writing back in my country for another smaller magazine. That’s all I had. And then if I knew then what I had to go through, I’d probably think twice if I should start a print magazine.
I thought, oh my God, it’s so easy. I’m going to do it. But then once you start doing it and you realize how huge of an undertaking it is from looking for clients and advertisers, looking for cover stars, being on top of current affairs and finding the budgets for the productions and finding the right team, the passionate, loyal team that would have the same vision as you have or be willing to bring your vision to life.
So all of these things are very, very complex. Even people and companies with unlimited budget would consider having a print magazine quite an undertaking. So it’s not enough just to have the funds.
You also have to be extremely passionate about it and live with it. So I live BASIC. I live 24-7 with the publication, with the ideas, with the concepts, with the things we need to do with the project.
Definitely there were some challenges. There were challenges on many levels, on the production level, to really build the team, to have the right team to support me, to support the vision, to find the funds to run the publication since the magazine is fully self-funded. And I can talk a little bit more about that, and different avenues, how we monetize the publication, how we keep it alive.
There were definitely challenges creating content that would resonate online and also would be relevant in print because these are two complete different platforms. And something that goes for print would necessarily go viral online and vice versa. If you take an influencer that has millions of followers online and put them in print, it’s going to completely contradict itself and not going to resonate with the audience who loves the fresh print, who loves to read something more meaningful and in-depth with the in-depth research.
Those are two different things were really hard to blend, but I managed to do it. I started it with the viral project, blending my photography and having a concept that resonated both online and in print. That concept was what if cars were supermodels.
I took different types of cars like a Tesla, a Toyota, and a Ferrari. I imagined what they would look like if they were supermodels. So that concept went viral right away. We got so many, like almost billion impressions online and so many different magazines picked it up and translated to different languages. And for print, it also was a really good artistic series. So things like that are used to sort of be relevant in the digital time, but also print relevant, you know, in modern times.
Samir Husni: How do you monetize BASIC?
Viktorija Pashuta: Very interesting question, because in my mind, the traditional advertising didn’t work. Something that worked maybe 10, 15 years ago when you have a full page of a luxury brand, it wouldn’t work for BASIC because we didn’t have the right numbers for the advertisers.
We didn’t have the right quantities in the beginning. We didn’t have enough celebrity power at the time. So in order to survive, we had to be creative. We had to be resourceful. I created different avenues with the product placement that we utilize the smaller brands and provided them additional value by creating unique organic content for them within the pages of the magazine.
So we started to get that product and integrate the product within our editorials, within our articles, within the special projects that we were creating, at the same time, giving the brand so much more value than they would have gotten in a digital, I mean, in the traditional media, just having a one page ad, they would get traction, they would get word of mouth, they would get new original content that they in turn would use on their social media pages.
That was one of the things that we utilize is the product placement. Secondly, we started to create specific targeted projects for brands that would increase the brand awareness and create content that will resonate with the image of the brand. So we take a suitcase company brand and we create a series of imagery that would support that brand.
For example, we work with a Taiwanese brand of suitcases called Desenio and their series were based on the Marvel Comic-Con heroes like Hulk and Captain America and Black Panther. We took those suitcases and I reimagined them as a female superheroes because traditionally in the Comic-Con world, all these characters were played by male characters. So I took a female Black Panther, I took a female Hulk, I took a female Captain America and then we utilized through fashion a series of works for them holding the suitcase in the photo shoot series that also became viral and we actually got the word of the ads of the world website for that campaign also printed and that both got viral digitally.
In addition, we diversified our revenue streams by utilizing additional activations that supported the magazine non-directly like organizing events, creating a production company that would create social media content for brands. We created a fashion showroom that represents fashion designers and provide press placements for those designers.
We had different revenue streams also connected to entertainment, fashion and content creation but non-directly they all were supporting BASIC magazine and all under the Basic Media Company umbrella and that really helped us to keep going and help us to succeed. That doesn’t mean we don’t want traditional advertising, we want it but at the same time that challenge pushed us to be more creative and find new non-traditional ways to monetize our operations.
Samir Husni: It sounds like more than a love affair with BASIC for you, yet at the same time it’s one of the rare moments that I see the editor-in-chief herself on the cover of the magazine. Tell me about that.
Viktorija Pashuta: Yes, that actually was very unplanned and I’m a person that would never put myself on a cover because I thought that’s sort of abusing your power. But for that specific issue it was very challenging to find a cover star. It was the 20th issue of BASIC. The stars that were suggested to us from publicists didn’t really match my aesthetic or they didn’t really were in line with the grandeur of the matter because it was a 20th issue. I wanted to do something special, none of the stars really kind of match that idea .My sister suggested, “that since it’s our 20th issue why don’t you put yourself on a cover and have your team inside of the magazine.”
I said no. I mean that would be too much. I would never really do that. Why would I do this? She said well it makes sense because you are the only photographer and the editor in chief. You are the visioner of the magazine that’s out there. Even Anna Wintour editor in chief of Vogue didn’t invent Vogue but you did. So I thought maybe that is something interesting to explore and also with my own story I can inspire other people specifically other women because I do have a quite big female following that always admire my journey and admire my tenacity and they know how difficult it is so that was a testament to the team and to myself. I thought okay if you cannot inspire yourself how can you inspire the world. I thought if you use yourself as the main inspiration , it will give inspiration for other people to believe in themselves and keep going with whatever ventures they enter.
Samir Husni: Well, your sister was right.
Viktorija Pashuta: I hope so. She’s always my secret advisor and, to have a little confession, most of the time she helps me with my editor’s letter. She has a very interesting perspective on things.
Samir Husni: You and I are having the same conversation in 2025. What would you tell me you’ve accomplished in the 24-25 year for BASIC?
Viktorija Pashuta: I think we made such a huge leap even right now. Look back at the first issues of the magazine. I’ve seen how different we’ve transformed since issue one and I also think it’s deeply connected to my own personal transformation. Certain things that interested me seven years ago no longer interested me now. As far as I grow personally and I transform personally so does the magazine. I feel we’ve done so much but also so little in my mind within the seven years. I always had these grand goals. I thought by this time we would become such a huge media company with huge following and it would have a very huge impact, but we’re not there yet. At the same time
I learned that no matter how big you become or no matter how successful you become you will never truly be satisfied with what you have and I think that’s a good thing that will always keep you pushing because once you feel like you’ve done it all and if you accomplish it all this stagnation period starts and you kind of start degrade and I always say the same about Oscar winning actors I feel like when DiCaprio won that Oscar he kind of slowed down. I always kind of wanted him not to win that Oscar because you know he’s going to push more, do more movies, do something more mind-blowing and keep growing as an actor so the same thing for me. I feel like even though I’m so close of being big but at the same time it always keeps pushing me to do better.
Looking back if we’re talking in 2025 I think we’ve done some really great accomplishments. We had quite a few renowned stars from Megan Fox to David Guetta to Michelle Rodriguez to Bebe Rex. All these really amazing personalities in music, film, and art world. So it’s been really great to have those celebrities.
I think we did quite a shift, especially for the past few issues, having more written content as before. In the beginning stages of BASIC we started highly as a visual publication. We had a lot of editorials, a lot of artworks, but we didn’t have a lot of articles. Right now we started to have more in-depth interviews. A little more articles, a little more research, a little more data, that we’re trying to get a little bit more a point of view, and trying to shape that BASIC identity.
We’re trying to shape our own voice which I think was the hardest thing and I think for any brand it’s really hard to stand out in the crowd so that’s kind of our goal been to find our DNA, to find BASIC DNA and to really stick to it and be authentic
I have a lot things to share but looking back I think we’ve done a lot of immersive projects, a lot of interesting events, which right now is my priority. My goal is to not also have a beautiful publication, but to create a community outside of the magazine, and that’s been my focus. As of right now I want to involve more projects supporting artists, supporting female founders, supporting emerging musicians, emerging student designers. For me I really want to be the voice for those who cannot really speak.
The most talented people are very humble and they don’t really want to push themselves. The loudest people on social media are usually the least talented. I want to shift that dynamic and give the platform for the truly talented people who don’t really have crazy presence on social media but they have something to say and they have some beautiful artwork that they’ve been working the whole life.
That’s my goal, that’s my passion, and looking back I feel we’ve done a lot, but I want to do more.
Samir Husni: Before I ask my typical last two questions is there any question I failed to ask or anything you would like to add.
Viktorija Pashuta: Interesting question. If you allow me just to kind of philosophize, I always feel that I want to judge myself . I feel, as any artist, there is always an internal struggle and sometimes people became too much consumed by consuming things right there’s so much choice and there’s so much pressure to be successful and to create, create, create and sometimes we kind of lose ourselves in that process and we lose ourselves. Why are we doing these things, what’s the purpose?
For me, it’s been a continuous journey to find myself and to find my voice, but also to be silent and listen more to those who have something to say so with the magazine. Maybe the question would be how individuals, who stand behind this smaller passionate project, how do they really keep that positive mindset that allows them to keep motivating themselves every day and keep continuing doing what they do because it’s not easy.
It’s always challenging. You always have this black and white stripes every day, you want to give up one day and the another day like no I’m doing something right. I want to continue because you feel there’s a feedback, and another day just like why am I doing all this. There’s so much already out there I just might just stop and get an eight to five job and just be happy and travel. But this is what I think really makes it so different for BASIC because despite all these challenges and the pains and the hurts you still persevere and still keep moving, still keep creating, because you know that’s through these pains you create something new, you make a difference, you inspire someone else and keep the planet going.
You keep grinding that wheel and you are not willing to settle and just take the easy path. I guess that would be my comment to your question,
Samir Husni: If I come to visit Viktorija one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing cooking, watching tv, reading a book, reading a magazine?
Viktorija Pashuta: A good question. It depends on the day. I taught myself on the thought that I do live in my own bubble. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing to be so disconnected from the rest of the world. If you come into my house you probably will see me doing either two things: one either watching a super dark bloody thriller or a documentary. I really love dark documentaries and research about unsolved crimes and cold cases. I’m really passionate about that mystery and that enigma of those cases and trying to find what happened and who done it.
The second thing you may find me doing is spending time in silence. Having some candles on, having some essential oils, and just maybe dancing in the dark. I love dancing, I love connecting to myself through movement and I think it’s very important to move in general in your life with your mind physically emotionally being out there.
Sometimes you could catch me doing something weird like I imagine I’m a batman and I’ll go outside in the dark streets and just walk around at night and there would be someone who needs my help randomly. It happened to me a few times. I just was at the right place at the right time to help somebody like an older person falling. Minor little things where I was just there at the right time to help them.
Samir Husni: Were you fascinated with the black cat back home in Latvia?
Viktorija Pashuta: Oh yeah. I’m a hardcore fan of the cat woman so I believe being behind the scenes and being that savior for those who cannot speak for themselves and elevate people. I would love to do more charity work. I would love to help more people. I’ve been trying to find something meaningful that connect with me, especially in the long term. I want to work more with kids and do more of the educational talks where I can inspire young people to find their passions. I was really grateful having really great mentors in my life and I want to pass it on and give back and be that mentor for someone else down the line.
Samir Husni: My typical final question is what keeps Viktorija up at night these days?
Viktorija Pashuta: What keeps me up at night usually some obsessive idea that I will never do. I had so many obsessive ideas that I see them so vividly but they never come to life. I roll them over back and forth in my head and I’m just thinking yes that’s exactly what I’m going to do but at the end of the day never do them, so that keeps me up at night.
Some kind of concepts,visions, and dreams that I feel stuck in my brain but would never materialize and that really drives me crazy I want this magic one where, well, maybe like a utopia thing where one day I would be like saying Viktorija, you have all the wealth in the world now, you can do anything you want. I actually had a little notebook that I’ve been writing since age 11. It contains all of the amazing cool concepts and ideas I want to do one day. Right now, that little book is full with ideas from books, shows, and restaurants.
I mean anything in the world that I could have created in that little book. So one day maybe if I have so much free time and unlimited wealth probably will bringing my crazy ideas to life.
Samir Husni: May all your wishes come true and thank you.
Mr. Magazine 