Mr. Magazine

“Surely it’s (digital) enhancing the quality of journalism with the speed in which we get our news It’s enhancing it in ways that I spoke about earlier, where in addition to text, you’re also seeing videos and gifs; you’re able to be there behind the scenes; you’re able to be there the instant something is happening and I think that’s a tremendous enhancement and increases the value of storytelling exponentially. At the same time, I think it’s incredibly important to get the story right and have multiple sources. It’s incredibly important to check your facts and I think we’re all racing, and in some cases rushing to get that story out there and that at times can risk quality to some degree.” Dan Peres

Men’s fashion and style, interspersed with social and political topics that are important to today’s men; Details is a magazine that pays attention to just that: the details of its niche audience and their desires when it comes to the content they want from the magazine. It’s beautifully crafted and exceptionally well-written and navigated by a captain-at-the-helm who knows the brand better than anyone else, having been around since its inception 15 years ago.

Daniel (Dan) Peres, the editor in chief who relaunched and reinvigorated the brand in 2000, is a man who is more passionate and excited about the Details brand today than he was all those years ago when he first started, especially when it comes to the 2015 anniversary issue. For this milestone, Dan worked with the editorial team to curate the who’s who of groundbreaking icons, naming 15 of today’s most notable men who have changed our world culturally and positively. It is an amazing list.

I spoke with Dan recently and we talked about the magazine’s past, present and future, emphasizing the evolvement the publication has seen over the years. The true dedication and vision he has for the brand was evident in his voice as we discussed the process of putting an issue together, from choosing the cover to the right photographer to document a story. It was an intriguing and informative interview that I thoroughly enjoyed.

So, relax and let the “details” of your day melt away as you enjoy the more entertaining “Details” of a man who knows his brand and how to keep it necessary and relevant in today’s fast-paced world – the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Dan Peres, Editor-In-Chief, Details Magazine.

But first, the sound-bites:

Dan Peres, Details’ editor in chief, circ. 2015.

On how his job as editor has changed over the last 15 years: An excellent question. I would say that the job has changed radically, and in many ways, for the better, of course, and in some ways, not. Fifteen years ago, we were really focused only on print and in building great features and great fashion stories and putting out great covers for our magazine. Obviously today, we are looking across a variety of platforms, most notably of course, is the rise of digital, which has, if I’m being honest, more than 50% of my attention now. So, I would say that’s a fairly dramatic shift.

On whether today he sees his audience wanting to play a bigger part in the creation and engagement process of the magazine through its digital components: Our audience does want to have a say and in fact, in the letter from the editor that I wrote for our 15th anniversary issue, I acknowledged the fact that our audience deserves to have a say. We’re still here after these 15 years because of our audience and our interaction with our audience has changed so dramatically that it’s important to hear what they have to say. We’re interacting with our audience extremely directly on social media. We’re looking at their comments on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and engaging in conversations with them in ways that we never have before, or have never been able to before.

On why the cover of a magazine is still so vitally important in today’s digital world: I think the cover of a magazine is extremely important because it’s your calling card. It’s something that you use to draw someone in with a just a glance. So, if someone passing through a train station or an airport or a bookstore saw it, they’d take notice. You’re competing with an extremely cluttered magazine landscape and it’s important to note that magazines are alive and well and print is alive and well because if you go to a Barnes & Noble or to a Hudson News or your local bookstore and newsstands, you’re going to see tons and tons of magazines. And I’m grateful for that, but at the same time, you have to cut through all of that noise. So, you have to choose a cover that represents your brand and that is hopefully going to connect with the people you are trying to attract.

On whether today’s Details is a more mature, more evolved read than it was 15 years ago or it’s basically stayed the same: It’s definitely not the same Details as it was 15 years ago and that’s true for a number of reasons. First of all, I think it’s really important for a magazine to evolve and for a magazine to grow with its readership. And I think that’s what we’ve done. I also think a lot has changed in the last 15 years. We’ve had a stronger point of view when it’s been necessary. We’ve done more service when it became obvious that readers were responding well to that. We had a little bit of a snarky attitude before “snark” was all over the Internet. So, we’ve certainly evolved and we’ve pushed our contributors and our photographers and writers to grow with us and they have.

On the process of putting the magazine together each time: First of all, when it works well and when everyone is firing on all cylinders and at the top of their game, it’s the most exciting process and it can be absolutely electric. And that’s what we strive for. So, when we’re sitting around and discussing content and there’s great ideas whizzing around the room, there’s no experience, at least at the office, that is as energetic, exciting and electric and as inspiring.

On the fact that he personally wrote one of the 15 leading men features in the anniversary issue and where he finds the time to write considering how busy editors are these days: First of all, thank you for paying close attention; I appreciate that. Second of all, let’s be honest; I was never the world’s greatest writer, but I love writing and it is something that I’m trying to do more often. The realities though, as you point out, are that there’s very little time during the workday to get any writing done. In the case of the Dries Van Noten piece, the write-up for this anniversary issue, I did that over the weekend. I sat down on a Saturday and was able to do that. I had interviewed him while I was in Paris at the men’s fashion shows over the summer. And I think that’s probably how I would have to work, if I were going to write, on the weekends because there is very little time.

On what makes him tick and click and motivates him to get up in the mornings: We need to continue to make a beautiful magazine that gets published ten times a year that goes out to a growing number of subscribers and newsstand readers. The challenge in maintaining that and continuing from one issue to the next; I always say you’re only as good as your last issue and I believe that’s true. So, we try to raise the bar every month. It’s an amazing challenge to continue to do that while developing and creating content for a digital audience. And that’s really what motivates me now. It’s a fresh challenge and I’m surrounded by an extraordinary team who push me and educate me and who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we look to grow our digital audience, which we’re doing by leaps and bounds. I’m probably more excited to come to work today than I was 15 years ago.

On what he does for relaxation at the end of a long day: (Laughs) OK – brace yourself. You would most likely find me sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of LEGOS and toy soldiers and coloring books with my three sons, because they are everything to me, so at the end of the day I really do everything that I can, I don’t always succeed, but I do everything that I can to leave work at the office and engage with my kids.

On anything else he’d like to add: Journalists today are living and working in really interesting times. This is the era of the citizen journalist, right? And I really appreciate that anyone can report on what they’re seeing, can post something on the Internet about anything from their vacation to their thoughts about a sitting Pope to comments about a presidential debate. Anyone can do that and anyone has the right to do that and I appreciate reading those things and seeing them. I value them tremendously. But I would also point out that journalism as a trade is a profession. It’s something that’s so valued and so important to me in my life; I have such a deep admiration for people that can write beautifully and that’s something that really gets me through the day sometimes. Reading a beautifully written magazine article or an incredibly well-reported, well-crafted newspaper article or feature is still unbelievably motivating and inspiring to me.

On whether he believes the quality of journalism is enhanced by digital or there’s a darker side to the Internet that could have a detrimental effect: I’m sure it’s both. Surely it’s enhancing the quality of journalism with the speed in which we get our news It’s enhancing it in ways that I spoke about earlier, where in addition to text, you’re also seeing videos and gifs; you’re able to be there behind the scenes; you’re able to be there the instant something is happening and I think that’s a tremendous enhancement and increases the value of storytelling exponentially. At the same time, I think it’s incredibly important to get the story right and have multiple sources. It’s incredibly important to check your facts and I think we’re all racing, and in some cases rushing to get that story out there and that at times can risk quality to some degree.

On what keeps him up at night: It’s just are we doing it right because more than anything else, we’re all running at a very fast pace here and there are a lot of people on this team doing a lot of different things, which again, is both exciting and terrifying. When I’m in a quiet room alone at night, it’s are we getting it right, because we have people coming to us every month in the magazine and every day, sometimes multiple times a day, on the website and we have a responsibility to them to get it right. And that’s what keeps me up at night more than anything else.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Dan Peres, Editor-In-Chief, Details Magazine.

Samir Husni: Details magazine, as we know it now, has 15 years under its belt. And a lot of things have happened over those years. How has your job changed as editor? Is your role the same as it was 15 years ago when you began this journey?

Dan Peres: An excellent question. I would say that the job has changed radically, and in many ways, for the better, of course, and in some ways, not.

Fifteen years ago, we were really focused only on print and in building great features and great fashion stories and putting out great covers for our magazine. Obviously today, we are looking across a variety of platforms, most notably of course, is the rise of digital, which has, if I’m being honest, more than 50% of my attention now. So, I would say that’s a fairly dramatic shift.

The most incredible thing about the digital space, as you well know, or as anyone who operates on that space knows, is that it’s immediately quantifiable. We are looking at data and analytics every day that tells us what people are reading and not reading; how they’re coming to us and what they’re sharing with other people.

So, 15 years ago, we built a magazine that we were extremely proud of and excited to publish and we put it out there and occasionally people would write a letter to the editor, taking issue with one thing or another or congratulating us on something, but we really didn’t have a sense of what they were paying attention to; it was all instincts. And that was a wonderful thing, instinct, and remains a wonderful thing. I think the editor’s instincts are priceless, and I don’t speak of mine, but of all editors’. And still remains a valued asset with print magazines.

With digital space, instincts also factor in of course, but you’re really able to look at the outcome and see what people are paying attention to. So, it has transformed to some degree the editing process.

Also, 15 years ago we were less brand managers than we are today. We weren’t doing, to the degree we are today, events and bigger marketing programs, native advertising and licensing agreements. The focus was really just on making the product. And that hasn’t changed. And as I said at the outset, most of these changes have been for the better, there’s no question about it.

Samir Husni: My most recent book that I wrote with two of my colleagues is called “Audience First” and in it we talked about how the audience wants a seat at the editorial table in today’s world; they’re not just content with writing a letter to the editor anymore, they really want to be engaged in the creation of the product. Do you see that happening with the rise of digital and its impact? As you said, you’re almost on a daily basis or an hourly basis even, monitoring the reaction, the clicks and the data from your readers.

Dan Peres: First of all, I will say that you can get incredibly obsessed with the data as it comes in, so I make a point of not looking at it until the following day. However, every now and then during the day I’ll go over to some people on our digital team and I’ll ask them where we are at that moment in time and they’ll pull up a screen that allows me to see exactly where we are then and what’s doing well for us and what isn’t working.

So, it can really become an obsession and I’m doing my best to not be plugged into it every minute of the day. Although, I have to say I would imagine by fall, I’ll be glued to it on an hourly basis.

That said, I think that’s a good question. Our audience does want to have a say and in fact, in the letter from the editor that I wrote for our 15th anniversary issue, I acknowledged the fact that our audience deserves to have a say. We’re still here after these 15 years because of our audience and our interaction with our audience has changed so dramatically that it’s important to hear what they have to say.

So, to some degree it’s direct and to some degree it’s indirect. Indirectly they have a say by just what they’re paying attention to, because that in essence motivates us to generate more content in that specific category. Paying attention to a story about a crime or a story about fall fashion trends; we take that into our story meetings and it informs some decision-making. Not all decision-making, and I want to be clear about that, but it certainly informs some of the decision-making process. And that in many ways is extraordinary audience impact on the editorial process.

In a more direct kind of way, we’re interacting with our audience extremely directly on social media. We’re looking at their comments on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and engaging in conversations with them in ways that we never have before, or have never been able to before. So, it’s pretty extraordinary.

Samir Husni: Let’s shift gears a bit and talk about the 15th anniversary issue of the magazine. I recall the first issue with Robert Downey, Jr. where he was completely bare from the waist up compared to this 15th anniversary issue with the fully-clothed Bradley Cooper with his dogs on the cover. You had 15 great men of the world who could have been on this particular cover, but you wrote in your editorial letter that Bradley Cooper was a no-brainer. How do you reach such a decision when you have 15 choices and why is the cover of a magazine, as is evident from your next-door neighbor, Vanity Fair, when Caitlyn Jenner was on the cover; why is the cover of a magazine still so important in today’s digital age?

Dan Peres: I’ll answer that backwards. I’ll answer the last part first. I think the cover of a magazine is extremely important because it’s your calling card. It’s something that you use to draw someone in with a just a glance. So, if someone passing through a train station or an airport or a bookstore saw it, they’d take notice. You’re competing with an extremely cluttered magazine landscape and it’s important to note that magazines are alive and well and print is alive and well because if you go to a Barnes & Noble or to a Hudson News or your local bookstore and newsstands, you’re going to see tons and tons of magazines. And I’m grateful for that, but at the same time, you have to cut through all of that noise. So, you have to choose a cover that represents your brand and that is hopefully going to connect with the people you are trying to attract.

In our case, Bradley Cooper, as I acknowledged in my letter from the editor, really represents the ideal of the Details reader. He is successful, but not an overnight success, he’s worked extremely hard. He is a stylish, attractive guy who plays roles that are both humorous and serious and he has great range as an actor. If you read or watch an interview with him, he’s very articulate and knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects. And this is the type of person that the Details reader inspires to be.

When we sat down to look at celebrating this milestone and filling this issue, Bradley really did seem to be the obvious choice. This is his 4th time on our cover; no one has been on the cover of Details more, so it really felt right. He’s at the top of his game and we believe that we’re at the top of our game and so it just made perfect sense.

But you’re right; we had this amazing group of people. We chose to look at 15 cultural influencers who have impacted our lives in any number of ways over the course of the last 15 years. And certainly any number of them could have appeared on the cover, but Bradley made the most sense.

And again, let’s not forget as we all race to embrace this digital age, the print product and the importance of the cover on that print product cannot be forgotten. And we believe that this image of Bradley works extremely well and to go back to your point about Robert Downey, Jr., that shirtless cover of him we did on our first relaunch issue 15 years ago; it was an incredibly impactful image of an actor whom we had known and loved, but who had gone through some struggles.

In fact, about two weeks before we had took that photograph he had been in prison and now Robert Downey, Jr. is really one of the most successful movie actors and producers in the world. So, it was a transformation for Robert Downey, Jr. at the time, coming out of prison and working through some extremely difficult times and starting over. And it really made perfect sense at the time as we were going through a transformation and starting over ourselves. So, it made a whole lot of sense for us to do it then. And it remains frankly one of my favorite covers from the last 15 years.

Samir Husni: As you’ve grown with Details over these last 15 years; are we seeing now a more mature, more serious, more evolved Details that we did at the beginning? Or is it the same Details that you created 15 years ago?

Dan Peres: It’s definitely not the same Details as it was 15 years ago and that’s true for a number of reasons. First of all, I think it’s really important for a magazine to evolve and for a magazine to grow with its readership. And I think that’s what we’ve done.

I also think a lot has changed in the last 15 years. We’ve had a stronger point of view when it’s been necessary. We’ve done more service when it became obvious that readers were responding well to that. We had a little bit of a snarky attitude before “snark” was all over the Internet. So, we’ve certainly evolved and we’ve pushed our contributors and our photographers and writers to grow with us and they have.

If I’m going to be honest here, I’ve matured over the last 15 years. I was a 28-year-old man when I was given this job, maybe entirely too young, but nonetheless; I’m now a 43-year-old man and so my perspective on just about everything is different than it was 15 years ago. And to some degree, and certainly you know that I don’t build this magazine on my own, there is an extraordinary team of contributors, both on-staff and off, that do it with me, but from this office the view has changed. And I think that has also impacted our content.

Samir Husni: Even this 62-year-old man still enjoys the magazine. In fact, I enjoy it better now than I did when I was younger. (Laughs)

Dan Peres: I appreciate you saying that.

Samir Husni: If I can get into your mind for a moment, into that process where you and your team sit down and start discussing, let’s say the December issue in this case. How does that process work and do you realize those “aha” moments at the end of the day where you just know you made the right decision, such as the one you made with the Bradley Cooper cover?

Dan Peres: First of all, when it works well and when everyone is firing on all cylinders and at the top of their game, it’s the most exciting process and it can be absolutely electric. And that’s what we strive for.

So, when we’re sitting around and discussing content and there’s great ideas whizzing around the room, there’s no experience, at least at the office, that is as energetic, exciting and electric and as inspiring.

What happens now, and this is really one of the most exciting things, is that we’re able to ask with any idea that gets thrown out onto the table; we’re able to ask what’s the best way to tell this story. It used to be that there was only one way to tell that story, which was by having a writer put something together for the magazine and publishing it on a monthly basis. Now, we can sit around and discuss the best platform to showcase a particular idea for our audience. And maybe it’s a video, or a list that we put out on social media or a series that we do on the website, or a straightforward magazine story or some sort of combination of those things.

And that’s where we get excited. We’re able to look at things holistically and say that would make a great photograph in the magazine, let’s find the perfect photographer to document it. But at the same time maybe we’ll have our social media manager go and do a Snapchat of that process or maybe we’ll get the subject to come in and we can do a video conversation with them. And that is incredibly exciting and incredibly rewarding.

But to look at the original question, I have to say when the editors and our contributors sit around in either this office or a conference room, anywhere really, and talk about ideas and what should be in the magazine and debate ideas and decide on the best way to execute them, it’s an incredible energy that I wish I could bottle and share with people because, while this isn’t rocket science and we know that, but figuring out the right way to tell a story and figuring out the right stories to show our audience is a really gratifying experience.

And let’s not forget, there are a lot of magazines out there and there are a lot of content platforms out there and not every story is right for our audience. There are a lot of times when people come into this office to pitch an idea and I’ll tell them that while it’s an amazing idea and would make a really terrific story, it’s just not something that I see myself reading in Details. It’s the type of story that I’m probably going to see in The New York Times Magazine or The New Yorker or Vanity Fair, just whatever the case may be.

So, it’s also making sure that we have a really strong filter and that we’re, and this is an awfully overused word, but that we’re really properly curating our content for our audience. We aren’t a magazine that has something for everyone and we have to remember that when we develop content. We really have a specific reader in mind when we’re looking at magazine building. That factors into this incredibly exciting process as well.

Samir Husni: And I think you’ve mastered that art of curation with your selection of the 15 men and the presentation. You could feel the balance, each of the leading men were given equal treatment. But what surprised me more than anything else is with all your busyness, you still find time to write, because I noticed that one of the featured men, the Dries Van Noten piece; you wrote it. When do you have time to write? I hear from editors all of the time that they’re busier than busy these days, between handling the brand, digital, social media – you name it. I was really surprised to see your byline as a writer in the magazine.

Dan Peres: First of all, thank you for paying close attention; I appreciate that. Second of all, let’s be honest; I was never the world’s greatest writer, but I love writing and it is something that I’m trying to do more often.

The realities though, as you point out, are that there’s very little time during the workday to get any writing done. In the case of the Dries Van Noten piece, the write-up for this anniversary issue, I did that over the weekend. I sat down on a Saturday and was able to do that. I had interviewed him while I was in Paris at the men’s fashion shows over the summer. And I think that’s probably how I would have to work, if I were going to write, on the weekends because there is very little time.

But I will say this, I don’t think that I’m going to be doing a ton of writing for the magazine, maybe once or twice a year I’ll grab something that interests me that I think I can pull off. The great thing about these features is this 15th anniversary portfolio was their brevity. They’re no more than 800 words, which is a fairly manageable length for someone like me.

Samir Husni: What makes you tick and click and motivates you to get out of bed in the mornings?

Dan Peres: I’ll be honest with you; I’ve gone through peaks and valleys in this role with respect to the energy that I bring. I think that I’m more energized today about this brand than I’ve ever been. And that’s because we have extraordinary challenges in front of us right now. And they are unbelievably exciting challenges.

We need to continue to make a beautiful magazine that gets published ten times a year that goes out to a growing number of subscribers and newsstand readers. The challenge in maintaining that and continuing from one issue to the next; I always say you’re only as good as your last issue and I believe that’s true. So, we try to raise the bar every month. It’s an amazing challenge to continue to do that while developing and creating content for a digital audience.

And that’s really what motivates me now. It’s a fresh challenge and I’m surrounded by an extraordinary team who push me and educate me and who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we look to grow our digital audience, which we’re doing by leaps and bounds. I’m probably more excited to come to work today than I was 15 years ago.

That said I’m sure that I have other things that make me tick; I’m an editor. At the end of the day, typos drive me nuts, simple, avoidable errors really make me crazy. You’re moving at the speed of digital on a website; it’s designed for you to put things up and if they don’t work, take them down or change them or edit them throughout the course of the day. And I’m getting used to working at that pace, because I’m still the type of editor that if I look at something and it doesn’t seem quite right, I want to fix or change it.

And that’s what magazine editors have the luxury of doing over a month-long production cycle. In the digital space obviously you don’t have that luxury and that’s both exciting and terrifying for someone like me. Just sort of adapting to having to move at that kind of a clip is something that I’m excited by, but it also challenges me. And I have this team of people around me that are anxious to get it up there, but ready to change something if the story develops or add to it if we have to. It’s exciting stuff, no doubt.

Samir Husni: If I happened to surprise you and drop by your house, what would I catch you doing? If you’re reading, what magazine would it be and on which platform: iPad, print or what? At the end of a long day, what do you do for relaxation?

Dan Peres: (Laughs) OK – brace yourself. You would most likely find me sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of LEGOS and toy soldiers and coloring books with my three sons, because they are everything to me, so at the end of the day I really do everything that I can, I don’t always succeed, but I do everything that I can to leave work at the office and engage with my kids.

I will tell you though that you will find books everywhere; you will find iPads and newspapers, but I tend to not bring magazines home. I absolutely don’t think you would find a magazine in my house. I love magazines and enjoy reading them, but all subscriptions come to the office and I look at them in my down-time or over my commute, but I tend to not bring them into the house.

As I said, I can be obsessive and I want to read a great story just like any other magazine reader and I find plenty of them today and I’m grateful for that. But also as an editor you’re constantly looking at other magazines to see what they’re doing and how they’re designing things and packaging them; how stories are written and headlined, so I tend to not want to do that at home.

Samir Husni: Anything else that you’d like to add?

Dan Peres: Journalists today are living and working in really interesting times. This is the era of the citizen journalist, right? And I really appreciate that anyone can report on what they’re seeing, can post something on the Internet about anything from their vacation to their thoughts about a sitting Pope to comments about a presidential debate. Anyone can do that and anyone has the right to do that and I appreciate reading those things and seeing them. I value them tremendously.

But I would also point out that journalism as a trade is a profession. It’s something that’s so valued and so important to me in my life; I have such a deep admiration for people that can write beautifully and that’s something that really gets me through the day sometimes. Reading a beautifully written magazine article or an incredibly well-reported, well-crafted newspaper article or feature is still unbelievably motivating and inspiring to me. And I think that as a journalist it’s important for me to acknowledge the extraordinary work of the writers and editors that’s going on around me, both inside this building and around the world. It’s really amazing and I am a fan of journalism. When I read a great piece of writing, it still manages to impact me in surprising ways and I feel it’s important for me to say that.

Samir Husni: Do you have any fears about the future of journalism in this digital age? Do you think that the digital environment is enhancing the quality of journalism or there’s a darker side that will impact that quality?

Dan Peres: I’m sure it’s both. Surely it’s enhancing the quality of journalism with the speed in which we get our news It’s enhancing it in ways that I spoke about earlier, where in addition to text, you’re also seeing videos and gifs; you’re able to be there behind the scenes; you’re able to be there the instant something is happening and I think that’s a tremendous enhancement and increases the value of storytelling exponentially.

At the same time, I think it’s incredibly important to get the story right and have multiple sources. It’s incredibly important to check your facts and I think we’re all racing, and in some cases rushing to get that story out there and that at times can risk quality to some degree.

And the rise of the citizen journalist is a pretty exciting thing, but you want to trust what you’re reading. You have to understand the source of what you’re reading. I would be a fool to say that the digital age has not completely transformed this business and it has for the better, there’s no question about that. I just think we all need to be careful with what we’re putting out there with the understanding that it’s out there and it’s accessible.

I believe it’s both; there’s an upside and a downside, but I can’t really think of anything in life that doesn’t have an upside and a downside and we just need to be responsible.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Dan Peres: It varies and from one night to the next, at least with respect to work, it’s any number of subjects, but it always has the general theme of are we doing it right? Are we telling the story the right way? Have we chosen the right person to be putting the spotlight on? Should we have done this differently? Are we approaching the development of our social media audience in the right way?

It’s just are we doing it right because more than anything else, we’re all running at a very fast pace here and there are a lot of people on this team doing a lot of different things, which again, is both exciting and terrifying. When I’m in a quiet room alone at night, it’s are we getting it right, because we have people coming to us every month in the magazine and every day, sometimes multiple times a day, on the website and we have a responsibility to them to get it right. And that’s what keeps me up at night more than anything else.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“I’m such a firm believer in print. I think one big mistake magazines make is they start looking to cut corners and they denigrate the actual physical print product and in this case Modern Farmer is a luxury item with a high cover price and the actual object looks and feels luxurious. And at the end of the day, the print is the legitimizer of everything that flows from it. Yes, we have a great website; we have a fantastic digital director running it and we’re all over social media, but the print is the true legitimizer and the hub from which everything else flows. And there’s just no substitute for sitting down with a magazine and a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, whatever your poison is, and flipping through it.” Sarah Gray Miller

Modern Farmer magazine celebrates mother earth and all of her mysteries. From what we eat, how it’s grown and what repercussions we might expect from the way we interact with our planet, to the subtlety of earth’s mission to sustain and keep us healthy. The magazine is a plethora of information that is both timely and valuable to the human species.

The magazine relaunched with the summer issue and while most things haven’t changed, the quality and aesthetic value of the magazine to name two; some things did, such as providing more service to the reader and a heavier, more substantial well of content.

The new editor in chief, Sarah Gray Miller, is a woman who knows quite a bit about the earth beneath her feet in her own right, having spent most of her career working for publications that revere it. Since January 2015, she has been at the helm of Modern Farmer and is passionately thrilled with the magazine’s interestingly hybrid nature.

I spoke with Sarah Gray recently and we talked about that fact, and how the magazine appeals to not only the most experienced of farmers and gardeners, but the backyard enthusiast as well. It was a fun and entertaining conversation and one I think you will highly enjoy.

So, sit back and get ready to do some “Modern” farming, without getting your hands dirty at all…

But first, the sound-bites:

On the fact the magazine first-launched with much fanfare, then was relaunched recently under her leadership: It’s hard for me to tell you much about what happened before I got here because I wasn’t around. So, I don’t know exactly what went down. What I can tell you is that I’m very lucky in that I came onboard at a really strong brand that caught an amazing wave in the culture and that was right on time, maybe even slightly ahead of its time because I feel like we’re getting even more traction now.

On the magnetic attraction she seems to have for magazines that deal with food, gardening and the country living-type experience: I’ve long been interested in food and the growing of food and lifestyles, so Modern Farmer is the perfect fit for me. Also, I love the fact that it is located in the Hudson Valley in Athens, New York. I’ve had a house up here for nine years now and for the longest time I was relegated to being just a weekender, and sort of dreaded going back to the city on Sunday nights.

On her goals for Modern Farmer and what direction she envisions for the magazine: I might start with the things that I’ve decided not to change. One is the look of the magazine. The production values are amazing. We have incredibly good paper and that we’re keeping. The design is gorgeous; the cover identity remains the same. I do think though that throughout the magazine there is a little more service; a little more in depth reporting. Every time we cover something we ask ourselves the really hard questions such as: why does this belong in Modern Farmer and nowhere else? And these questions are just something that the reader asks too.

On what she thinks the major determinate is for Modern Farmer to survive: I do think it’s catching this wave in the culture where people care very much about that their food; I think that’s key. Even before advertising, keeping your readers happy and satisfying your consumers and your audience is vital. And I’ve long- edited from the reader’s point-of-view, with a pretty sharp BS meter for whether or not I as the reader understand it and I’m spurred to action, have the tools I need to take that action, etc. And then of course, advertising is part of the equation.

On whether she thinks a magazine called “Modern” Farmer can be successful in print: I’m such a firm believer in print. I think one big mistake magazines make is they start looking to cut corners and they denigrate the actual physical print product and in this case Modern Farmer is a luxury item with a high cover price and the actual object looks and feels luxurious. And at the end of the day, the print is the legitimizer of everything that flows from it.

On whether her past career experience at places such as Garden Design and Country Living helped to prepare her for her job at Modern Farmer: Immeasurably. I owe the biggest debt to Dorothy Kalins at Garden Design who taught me pretty much everything I know and also the connections I made there and at Organic Style and Country Living were incredibly helpful.

On the challenges of doing cover photo shoots with animals versus people: Oh, the things that I’ve learned about ducks that you wouldn’t believe. One thing and we laugh here, animals look like what animals look like, so there’s not a whole lot of photoshopping you can do in the same way as you can with celebrities and real people, so that’s different. They bring their own set of challenges however.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the mornings: I am so energized by this product that I just can’t tell you how much. There are two different things; one, I love a startup; I love a turnaround and I love indie journalism more than anything, so the fact that this is young and scrappy and a tiny team reminds me of what it was like at Garden Design, Budget Living and Saveur. I do not spend my days in corporate meetings; I’m actually back doing the work again. I’m getting to report things and write things and line edit content, which is thrilling and fun and exciting. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster.

On how her role as editor has changed from before the digital age and after: I think all editors are busier now than they used to be for sure, because you’re looking at multiple channels, but at the end of the day it’s all about communicating information to your audience, whether you’re doing that on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or your website or in print. I really welcome the technology. I also love that it allows for more immediacy and more of a conversation and an exchange with the reader.

On how she decides on the animal that will grace the cover of the magazine each time: For one, we’re not covering animals that have already been covered, that’s a big part of it. And then it’s also looking at, this may sound silly, but with animals, just like fashion or food, there are definite trends. There is a ton of interest in duck eggs and duck meat; they’re the new chickens, if you will.

On whom she sees as Modern Farmer’s number one competitor: I don’t really see one out there. I know every editor likes to say that, but I don’t. It would have been easier for me, at say, Country Living, to name magazines that seemed like they were in a competitive set, but here the magazine is such an interesting hybrid; it’s covering food, gardening, farming and just the whole back-to-the-land lifestyle and it also contains the kind of articles that put it in more of a thought leader category, or a hard journalism category.

On anything else she’d like to add: One question that I get a lot is: are we for farmers? And are farmers reading the magazine? And the answer is yes, we do have farmers reading us. And we do want to speak to those farmers and cover tools that will help them and cover plants that relate to farming, but we also have a lot of people who read the magazine who are merely backyard gardeners; who are want-to-be farmer-gardeners and dreamers and concerned, responsible consumers. So, we are talking to all of those constituents at the same time, which is challenging but incredibly rewarding.

On what keeps her up at night: Everything keeps me up at night. (Laughs) Everything from the state of the plants, the pictures; did I put the wrong directional on that caption, just everything. You would think right after we go to press that I would have the calmest, most relaxed time, especially with a quarterly; that I would get a few really calm weeks. But that’s when I wake up in the middle of the night the most wondering did I catch everything; did I get everything right.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Sarah Gray Miller, Editor-In-Chief, Modern Farmer magazine.

Samir Husni: Modern Farmer was born with a big bang and it was the darling of the media and then something happened and now you’re in charge. Tell me about that journey.

Sarah Gray Miller: It’s hard for me to tell you much about what happened before I got here because I wasn’t around. So, I don’t know exactly what went down. What I can tell you is that I’m very lucky in that I came onboard at a really strong brand that caught an amazing wave in the culture and that was right on time, maybe even slightly ahead of its time because I feel like we’re getting even more traction now.

All of that said, everything can be improved, so the first thing that I did when I got here was to really try and elicit criticism; I wanted to hear from readers and people in the business about what they didn’t love; what they wanted to see changed, as well as what they did love and what the sacred cows were. The last thing I wanted to do was to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Samir Husni: This genre of magazines seems to attract you like a magnet; you’ve been with Country Living, Organic Style and Garden Design…

Sarah Gray Miller: I’ve long been interested in food and the growing of food and lifestyles, so Modern Farmer is the perfect fit for me. Also, I love the fact that it is located in the Hudson Valley in Athens, New York. I’ve had a house up here for nine years now and for the longest time I was relegated to being just a weekender, and sort of dreaded going back to the city on Sunday nights. So, to be able to live here full time and be in the media business is amazingly fortunate.

Samir Husni: Tell me about your plans and goals for Modern Farmer and where you expect to take the magazine now that it’s under your tenure.

Sarah Gray Miller: I might start with the things that I’ve decided not to change. One is the look of the magazine. The production values are amazing. We have incredibly good paper and that we’re keeping. The design is gorgeous; the cover identity remains the same.

I do think though that throughout the magazine there is a little more service; a little more in depth reporting. Every time we cover something we ask ourselves the really hard questions such as: why does this belong in Modern Farmer and nowhere else? And these questions are just something that the reader asks too.

The cover animal; they wanted to know more and see more in depth coverage on that particular animal. So, instead of just a rundown of eight cute breeds, we’re actually telling people about how to go about raising ducks.

The magazine is ultimately for people who care greatly about their food and where it comes from and in the past you never saw a lot of food. And you may have noticed in the fall issue there is food and recipes connected to chefs and the causes that they’re advocating for. But I think it’s important to actually see food.

Samir Husni: You’ve been doing this for some time and you’ve seen a lot of magazines come and go; what do you think is the major determinate for Modern Farmer to survive?

Sarah Gray Miller: I do think it’s catching this wave in the culture where people care very much about that their food; I think that’s key. Even before advertising, keeping your readers happy and satisfying your consumers and your audience is vital. And I’ve long- edited from the reader’s point-of-view, with a pretty sharp BS meter for whether or not I as the reader understand it and I’m spurred to action, have the tools I need to take that action, etc. And then of course, advertising is part of the equation.

So, shortly after I came onboard, which was the very end of January 2015; we brought in a publisher and there’s an ad sales staff, that way I get to focus on making the magazine, which is great, and speaking to the readers. But there’s now a dedicated team out selling it to advertisers.

Samir Husni: What do you say to those people who might ask you; the name of the magazine is Modern Farmer, yet you’re publishing a print magazine, an ink on paper magazine, in these modern digital days; what would you say to them?

Sarah Gray Miller: I’m such a firm believer in print. I think one big mistake magazines make is they start looking to cut corners and they denigrate the actual physical print product and in this case Modern Farmer is a luxury item with a high cover price and the actual object looks and feels luxurious. And at the end of the day, the print is the legitimizer of everything that flows from it.

Yes, we have a great website; we have a fantastic digital director running it and we’re all over social media, but the print is the true legitimizer and the hub from which everything else flows. And there’s just no substitute for sitting down with a magazine and a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, whatever your poison is, and flipping through it.

Samir Husni: Needless to say, I agree with you 100%. (Laughs)

Sarah Gray Miller: (Laughs too). For obvious reasons, Mr. Magazine™.

Samir Husni: With your background; you’re from Mississippi, so you grew up in a farming state and you’ve worked with all of these magazines that have to do with food, farming as a way of life, and getting back to Mother Earth. How do you think all of that has helped and prepared you for the job you’re doing now?

Sarah Gray Miller: Immeasurably. I owe the biggest debt to Dorothy Kalins at Garden Design who taught me pretty much everything I know and also the connections I made there and at Organic Style and Country Living were incredibly helpful.

Another thing that I learned, probably at Garden Design, where you’re dealing with sort of technical, horticultural information is the ability to speak to the expert, the pro, the experienced person who’s been doing it forever and at the very same time talk to the enthusiast who might be new to the subject matter. And there’s a real trick for not talking down to people who already know what they’re doing, but giving the enthusiast context clues to understand the material.

Samir Husni: When you’re shooting your covers of all of the different animals, such as the duck on the summer issue; how difficult is it working with animals as opposed to working with celebrities and other people that you can actually talk to?

Sarah Gray Miller: (Laughs) Oh, the things that I’ve learned about ducks that you wouldn’t believe. One thing and we laugh here, animals look like what animals look like, so there’s not a whole lot of photoshopping you can do in the same way as you can with celebrities and real people, so that’s different. They bring their own set of challenges however.

Luckily with the duck they’re flightless, but they also have notoriously filthy bathroom habits. I tried to say that in the most polite way possible, but I’ll just put it this way; we went through a lot of white seamless paper onset during that shoot.

Samir Husni: What makes you tick and click and motivates you to get out of bed in the mornings and say it’s going to be a great day?

Sarah Gray Miller: I am so energized by this product that I just can’t tell you how much. There are two different things; one, I love a startup; I love a turnaround and I love Indie journalism more than anything, so the fact that this is young and scrappy and a tiny team reminds me of what it was like at Garden Design, Budget Living and Saveur. I do not spend my days in corporate meetings; I’m actually back doing the work again. I’m getting to report things and write things and line edit content, which is thrilling and fun and exciting. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster.

I also think this magazine has the potential to, and this may sound hyperbolic, change the world. This magazine is a force for good, which makes me proud to be a part of it and I get very excited and passionate about the stories that we do.

And we get to do long-form journalism, which is so rare. We’re assigning pieces that are 2,000 words long and very few magazine editors get to do that. And we get to cover important political issues. It’s smarter than your average lifestyle magazine.

Samir Husni: You were editing magazines before the dawn of the digital age…

Sarah Gray Miller: Yes, I think we were on AOL way back 20 years ago when email was brand new. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: You were editing before we became fully digitized and after; how has your role of editor changed during those years?

Sarah Gray Miller: I think all editors are busier now than they used to be for sure, because you’re looking at multiple channels, but at the end of the day it’s all about communicating information to your audience, whether you’re doing that on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or your website or in print. I really welcome the technology. I also love that it allows for more immediacy and more of a conversation and an exchange with the reader.

I always said that I’ve never been nor ever will be one of those editors who sit above the reader. I always like to get down on the floor and roll around with them. I’m in it with them. And I think social media, especially, allows us to have such a conversation with our audience. And get instantaneous feedback about what interests them or doesn’t interest them.

And then what the print product lets us do is take our time and sink our teeth into a subject, report it from every angle, lovingly line edit, making sure every single word is right, and create a gloriously deep, physical, luxurious product. But I also like the fast interaction that digital media provides. I consume information on all channels.

Samir Husni: When you’re considering your next cover subject; how do you decide which animal is up next?

Sarah Gray Miller: For one, we’re not covering animals that have already been covered, that’s a big part of it. And then it’s also looking at, this may sound silly, but with animals, just like fashion or food, there are definite trends. There is a ton of interest in duck eggs and duck meat; they’re the new chickens, if you will.

That same thinking went into our fall issue, where we’ve got a cover contest up online still, so I can’t tell you what it is yet, but it’s an animal that has sort of went through a boom-bust economy. And it’s back and people are farming it again.

There’s also a now-ness; we’re not just covering X because it’s summer and that’s the time to cover this particular animal or that one. We’re also thinking about what people are interested in right then.

Samir Husni: Who do you consider your number one competitor?

Sarah Gray Miller: I don’t really see one out there. I know every editor likes to say that, but I don’t. It would have been easier for me, at say, Country Living, to name magazines that seemed like they were in a competitive set, but here the magazine is such an interesting hybrid; it’s covering food, gardening, farming and just the whole back-to-the-land lifestyle and it also contains the kind of articles that put it in more of a thought leader category, or a hard journalism category. So, I don’t see a direct competitor.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Sarah Gray Miller: One question that I get a lot is: are we for farmers? And are farmers reading the magazine? And the answer is yes, we do have farmers reading us. And we do want to speak to those farmers and cover tools that will help them and cover plants that relate to farming, but we also have a lot of people who read the magazine who are merely backyard gardeners; who are want-to-be farmer-gardeners and dreamers and concerned, responsible consumers. So, we are talking to all of those constituents at the same time, which is challenging but incredibly rewarding.

And I don’t know why it throws people, because Rolling Stone has people who are not rock stars who read the magazine. Farmers are the rock stars for this audience.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Sarah Gray Miller: Everything keeps me up at night. (Laughs) Everything from the state of the plants, the pictures; did I put the wrong directional on that caption, just everything. You would think right after we go to press that I would have the calmest, most relaxed time, especially with a quarterly; that I would get a few really calm weeks. But that’s when I wake up in the middle of the night the most wondering did I catch everything; did I get everything right. I take this job really seriously and I feel very responsible to the people who pay for the magazine and read it. It matters to me greatly that we get everything not just right, but great.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“The Reader is a publication that’s education-focused, free, and really revolutionizes standard direct mail by focusing on good content and the power of what paper and print can do. And what we find quite interesting and fascinating is that the direct mail industry has really been missing the opportunity that print and stories present. And what we do in The Reader magazine is we revive those values that are inherent in an IT (Information Technology), and we call print an IT that is underappreciated, but also extremely widely-used and understood.” Chris Theodore

The power of print has never been more evident than with The Reader Magazine. Co-founder and editor, Chris Theodore is a soft-spoken man who has the heart of a lion when it comes to the mission of his magazine.

The Reader is a free news publication founded in 2001 and its mission is to help advertisers influence local audiences through positive environmental, social and economic impact in communities. Through moral integrity, social responsibility and a genuine desire to change people’s lives, The Reader is a journalistic endeavor that has definitely made its mark in the world of magazines and magazine media.

I spoke with Chris recently and we talked about the magazine’s noble foundation and purpose and about the goal of expansion which will happen in three phases over the next five years. The goal – to become the first single media entity with a journalistic connection with every American, to create a Reader Nation.

A lofty goal, some might say, but nevertheless, their ultimate dream of providing print and Internet advertising to all U.S. advertisers, would change the face of advertising immeasurably.

The environmentally-responsible business model that it implements is done with the primary goal of saving each advertiser an average of 4 tons of wood per year by driving advertiser ROI through journalistic content rather than high frequency, which in turn is a monetary amount of over $3,500 per year.

It’s a remarkable magazine with a remarkable man behind the wheel. The passion and enthusiasm that Chris feels for both the brand and the cause is palpable.

So, I hope you enjoy being “The Reader” of this interview with Chris Theodore, Co-founder and Editor, The Reader Magazine… I know I thoroughly did.

But first, the sound-bites:

On a description of what The Reader is: It’s a publication that’s education-focused, free, and really revolutionizes standard direct mail by focusing on good content and the power of what paper and print can do.

On why he believes some magazine publishers have missed the boat on the power of print: Certainly some people have not missed the boat. Let’s talk about The Economist, which I heard was just up for sale. I read that they were doing something like $500 million in sales and $95 million in profit. I don’t know that company well enough to tell you what part of that revenue is print-driven, but I bet a big part of it is. (Laughs) Probably 80% of it is. So, clearly there are companies who understand that power and are just going right after it, or aren’t trying to hide what they do.

On The Reader’s approach with advertisers when it comes to its environmentally-responsible business model concerning the magazine versus direct mail: It was research that we undertook about two or three years ago that we’re really glad that we focused on. It came about through relationships with third-party, non-profit organizations that were more than glad to help us determine that. It was really super-cool to be able to give people this sensible, accurate and scientific peer review in a type of analysis, which was awesome. Does it matter to our advertisers? I think to some, yes. I haven’t done research as to the impact our environmentally-responsible model has on our advertisers, but I can tell you that it’s clear when we’re discussing advertising that it is increasingly a positive thing when we’re talking to potential advertisers.

On whether he thinks The Reader is more of an advocate magazine or a journalistic magazine: One of the most powerful things that we do, and I can feel the goose bumps forming on my arm as I’m telling you, is the fact that we use our magazine in a moral way. We try to find information that can communicate in a moral way. Does that mean advocacy? I wouldn’t use the word advocacy; you might call it solution-focused journalism. Some people call it explanatory journalism.

On whether he believes the magazine could have accomplished its goal and vision without the print component, if it were digital-only: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know the answer to that. We certainly could never do what we’re intending to do, nor would we have the impact in a local community if we were just digital, because there are just too many choices out there. What’s interesting about print is that – well, there are many things interesting about print as you well know, but I would say that one of them is the power to be in someone’s home and to have something tangible. That’s very important.

On the fact that he and The Reader hit the spotlight when he asked the Governor of California for $26 million to hire 439 laid-off PennySaver employees and whether he received the money: No, we haven’t gotten the money yet. (Laughs too) It remains to be seen where that money will come from. It’s important to be patient and our company’s strategy is sure-footed; we’ve always been sure-footed. Things are still in a positive state in terms of potentially working and getting this money from the state of California.

On the expansion plans for The Reader: When I thought about doing what we’re doing in this area, Southern California, at the very beginning my dream was to just do this area. Then that dream and my desire grew. Even in 2006, believe it or not, we were dreaming about expanding into greater areas, but we really hadn’t put together the plan. We’d done a lot of hard work, but we hadn’t done what can be the excruciatingly hard work of doing all of the financial analysis and all of the operational and strategical analyses and all of the research, that we have now done. So, that has resulted in what is about an 87-page business planning process paper that shows specifically every state, including Mississippi, and when we will create a zone in that area.

On the major stumbling block he might face and how he would overcome it: The key will be talent; attracting and hiring, managing, inspiring and retaining talent. Our plan for addressing that will be what I eluded to earlier, which is we will keep our focus on the noble purpose of what we’re doing. And we will make sure that those who come aboard understand that this is not just about profitability, it’s about bringing something needed and that can transform hearts and individual’s lives into their homes that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

On anything else he’d like to add: Blowing the lid off just a little more about the myth of advertising expenditures is something I find interesting and one of my favorites is, according to Ad Age magazine as well as BIA/Kelsey, a local advertising research company, of the $140 billion spent on local advertising last year, 50% was spent on some form of print advertising, 27% of the $140 billion was spent on direct mail. But the most fascinating, I think, is how that shows people what’s happening with print and local advertising. It is $70 billion that is spent on print and that’s not talking about national advertising. That’s local advertising.

On what keeps him up at night: There’s really not one thing in particular. There’s not one thing that really keeps me up at night, because right now to be honest with you, my feeling is that it’s time to move. There are various times in life that we do things and that we want things, but right now it’s time to simply put it altogether and to move forward.

And now for the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Chris Theodore, Co-Founder, Editor, The Reader Magazine.

Samir Husni: Could you tell me a little about The Reader?

Chris Theodore: It’s a publication that’s education-focused, free, and really revolutionizes standard direct mail by focusing on good content and the power of what paper and print can do.

And what we find quite interesting and fascinating is that the direct mail industry has really been missing the opportunity that print and stories present. And what we do in The Reader magazine is we revive those values that are inherent in an IT (Information Technology), and we call print an IT that is underappreciated, but also extremely widely-used and understood.

And why its understanding is important and why its familiarity is actually important is because that’s the door that opens when you start talking about print to actual lay people or businesspeople. And when you’re describing the power of print to businesspeople, it’s not a story that you have to try very hard to get people to understand, which is very important because that way you can sell advertising. So, there is a huge door opening there, which paves the way for a relationship with a businessperson. And that would be one way to describe The Reader magazine.

Samir Husni: Why do you think a lot of other publishers and magazine publishers have missed or ignored that story and now people are calling it content marketing or native advertising, rather than using the power of print to deliver stories plus advertising? Why have they missed the boat on this?

Chris Theodore: Certainly some people have not missed the boat. There’s a great website that I found recently called “The Power of Print,” I’m not really quite sure what they’re doing, but they are people who obviously love print.

But let me try and hit your question straight-on. I would say actually that there are plenty of publishers out there who understand it and that they’re doing well and their business model is doing well.

Let’s talk about The Economist, which I heard was just up for sale. I read that they were doing something like $500 million in sales and $95 million in profit. I don’t know that company well enough to tell you what part of that revenue is print-driven, but I bet a big part of it is. (Laughs) Probably 80% of it is. So, clearly there are companies who understand that power and are just going right after it, or aren’t trying to hide what they do.

Interestingly on the other hand, there are companies here in California that are calling their companies digital first rather than what they are which is a media channel, which I find really quite interesting. They’re supposed to be a local media channel. And I think some of is bad information.

Samir Husni: I refer to that as falling in love with the first gorgeous mistress who walks the hallways of those companies, tempting them with the revenues of digital, while our faithful partner called print has been and still is providing us with our daily bread.

Chris Theodore: You’re right and has been for a long, long time.

Samir Husni: Let me ask you specifically about The Reader because I was fascinated in the way that you said: you use The Reader to advertise instead of high-frequency junk mail or direct mail. And the amount of savings in terms of trees and water; tell me more about that concept and as you go and approach your clients, your advertisers, and you compare direct mail to The Reader as the vehicle of delivery for their advertisements; tell me about that conversation.

Chris Theodore: Yes, of course. It was research that we undertook about two or three years ago that we’re really glad that we focused on. It came about through relationships with third-party, non-profit organizations that were more than glad to help us determine that. It was really super-cool to be able to give people this sensible, accurate and scientific peer review in a type of analysis, which was awesome.

Does it matter to our advertisers? I think to some, yes. I haven’t done research as to the impact our environmentally-responsible model has on our advertisers, but I can tell you that it’s clear when we’re discussing advertising that it is increasingly a positive thing when we’re talking to potential advertisers.

I think that also corresponds to the amount of people in the United States who increasingly care about lowering fossil-fuel burning, which is interesting because our next issue is on the environmental politics in California. And one of the things I’m learning is there are some things that, not just Californians, but all Americans think about in terms of the environment, or let me say not all, but a high majority, and one of them is lowering fossil-fuel use. So, it’s really been a timely thing.

I think one of the things we’re good at is timing, in terms of our publication. In business it’s always helpful to be that. The environmental impact is something that’s important, particularly in California where we’re having a drought, for our advertisers to know and for our audiences to know. And that each of our advertisers is saving a community 40,000 gallons of water a year. From an advertisement standpoint, that’s about the size of two business cards, if I’m not mistaken. And that’s something that matters to them. Then we can figure it all out, there’s all kinds of cool calculators online; we can figure out what 40,000 gallons equals for a community, let’s say with 120,000 households. So, it’s a cool time.

I love being in the magazine business right now for many reasons. One of them is having access to great information that we can provide people simultaneously and generally in my opinion; it’s a quality level of educationally-focused information that is presented in ways that do not alienate or do not pander. There’s a need for that, despite the incredible amount of information everywhere. There is still a need for good content.

Samir Husni: Is The Reader more of an advocate magazine or more of a journalistic magazine?

Chris Theodore: That’s a great question. I’ll answer it this way; my colleague and the co-founder of The Reader magazine, sent me a wonderful article yesterday that was in Forbes. And it was about how some companies, and they were using Monster.com as an example, tail spun and fell apart because they lost their sense of noble purpose. They were talking about how originally Monster.com was saying that they wanted people to have a job that they cared about and something that they could feel good about. The whole focus was on making sure that the users used that medium in order to do something very important in their lives, which was to find something with meaning. And they lost that. When it was all profit-driven and the CEO, who was subsequently fired, was all about the quarterly and focusing on it, they lost that sense of noble purpose.

I bring that up because one of the most powerful things that we do, and I can feel the goose bumps forming on my arm as I’m telling you, is the fact that we use our magazine in a moral way. We try to find information that can communicate in a moral way. Does that mean advocacy? I wouldn’t use the word advocacy; you might call it solution-focused journalism. Some people call it explanatory journalism.

I would say that one of the things missing today is a certain moral quality when it comes to journalism and the information being shared with people. And you might be able to sense why this would be so important; if you have a free publication and you can actually master a certain moral tone without being over-the-top or coming across as: this is the only way, but rather basing your information on a basis of truth, something like what The Center for Public Integrity does, where you can tell after a while, if you’ve been following their journalistic brand, after some years, but it doesn’t really take years. You can actually pick it up the first time you ever see it. There’s a certain truthfulness and a certain avoidance of the same kind of language that gets people into problems.

George Orwell once said that when he wrote an article, he used to be a journalist; he tried to not use words or expressions that were simply the repetition of what others had said. So, if you just try hard enough you can create a certain moral brand, if you will, that actually is legitimate and relevant.

Samir Husni: And do you think you could have accomplished what you have with The Reader without the print component, if you were digital-only?

Chris Theodore: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know the answer to that. We certainly could never do what we’re intending to do, nor would we have the impact in a local community if we were just digital, because there are just too many choices out there.

What’s interesting about print is that – well, there are many things interesting about print as you well know, but I would say that one of them is the power to be in someone’s home and to have something tangible. That’s very important.

So, I guess one of the answers to your question is that I don’t envision that. We wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we’re achieving and what we wanted to achieve any other way than through print.

Samir Husni: Back in May you and The Reader came into the spotlight when you asked Governor Brown to give you a grant or a loan of $26 million to hire 439 Californians who were laid off when PennySaver closed its doors, a media company which had been operating for 50 years. Any reaction from anyone? Did you get the money? (Laughs)

Chris Theodore: No, we haven’t gotten the money yet. (Laughs too) It remains to be seen where that money will come from. It’s important to be patient and our company’s strategy is sure-footed; we’ve always been sure-footed. Things are still in a positive state in terms of potentially working and getting this money from the state of California.

But also it very well might not come from the state, but instead come from the Money Markets and the private sector, commercial sources, basically.

Samir Husni: The Reader is doing well in the local market; it’s my understanding that advertising revenue was something like 46% higher this year than last. Is that the encouraging sign that is pushing you to go nationwide, to expand? Or is it the mission that you want to share with the rest of the country after sharing it with California for 15 years?

Chris Theodore: It’s both. That’s the short answer and I’ve given so few short answers that’ll I’ll keep it at that.

Samir Husni: Tell me about the expansion plans; when could I expect to see, for example, The Reader delivered to my home in Mississippi?

Chris Theodore: The expansion plan really grew out of a long, simmering desire to have a bigger impact than we had and to be able to bring the kind of information that I’ve described to more people. It came from a desire to share with people who might not have had the same kind of background that I did, which was a father who was an educator and a mother who was involved in non-profit work, so I was given a lot in my very fortunate upbringing. So that changed my trajectory.

When I thought about doing what we’re doing in this area, Southern California, at the very beginning my dream was to just do this area. Then that dream and my desire grew. Even in 2006, believe it or not, we were dreaming about expanding into greater areas, but we really hadn’t put together the plan. We’d done a lot of hard work, but we hadn’t done what can be the excruciatingly hard work of doing all of the financial analysis and all of the operational and strategical analyses and all of the research, that we have now done.

So, that has resulted in what is about an 87-page business planning process paper that shows specifically every state, including Mississippi, and when we will create a zone in that area.

The short story is that the expansion will occur in three phases. The planning is somewhat flexible and I’m proud of our planning for that reason. In California, for example, when PennySaver closed, our plan was flexible enough and we knew the numbers enough that we could very quickly figure out what we would need in terms of upfront capital as well as anything else to change it somewhat so that we could accelerate the expansion and go into California, for example, on a faster way than we had.

But the short story is it will occur in three phases over five years and everything has been laid out, not that things won’t come up, things will come up and problems will occur, but I have a very good understanding of this business; I have a very good understanding of this market and we feel that if we do what we have done up to now, which is being careful and making good decisions and having good people, eventually we will be nationwide in about five years.

Samir Husni: What do you anticipate during those five years as being your major stumbling block and what is your contingency plan to overcome it?

Chris Theodore: The key will be talent; attracting and hiring, managing, inspiring and retaining talent. Our plan for addressing that will be what I eluded to earlier, which is we will keep our focus on the noble purpose of what we’re doing. And we will make sure that those who come aboard understand that this is not just about profitability, it’s about bringing something needed and that can transform hearts and individual’s lives into their homes that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

And I think that if we do a good job of not just communicating that, but actually living that and actually in our company, continue what we’re doing now, which is endeavoring to stay focused on the noble element and the purpose of what we’re doing, then that will continually enfranchise people who are working with us. But we’ll also be dealing with them in a way that they see congruency here and see that it’s real. And I want to be in an honest and real company. And that’s how I would answer that question and I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but I’ll tell you this, it isn’t new to me. We will be able to apply a decade and a half of trial and error to the application of a very well thought-out plan in a market which is poised to accept what we’re doing.

Samir Husni: Is there anything that you’d like to add?

Chris Theodore: Blowing the lid off just a little more about the myth of advertising expenditures is something I find interesting and one of my favorites is, according to Ad Age magazine as well as BIA/Kelsey, a local advertising research company, of the $140 billion spent on local advertising last year, 50% was spent on some form of print advertising, 27% of the $140 billion was spent on direct mail. Interestingly, the projection for 2018 and by the way direct mail is the number one category of expenditures for local advertising in the United States; interestingly, it will remain so according to BIA/Kelsey in 2018. It will only go down by three percentage points.

But the most fascinating, I think, is how that shows people what’s happening with print and local advertising. It is $70 billion that is spent on print and that’s not talking about national advertising. That’s local advertising.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Chris Theodore: There’s really not one thing in particular. There’s not one thing that really keeps me up at night, because right now to be honest with you, my feeling is that it’s time to move. There are various times in life that we do things and that we want things, but right now it’s time to simply put it altogether and to move forward. It’s time to do this and time to expand. So, I’m not really taking a lot of time or worried about it.

Samir Husni: Thank you.