Mr. Magazine

During a recent speech to The University of Mississippi journalism students, Bruce Brandfon, VP and Publisher of Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine (since 1845) in the United States, asked the question “Who is a journalist?” He answered his own question Who is a journalist by the following:

“A journalist is someone who engages the intellectual and emotional lives of others, and has a profound effect on them.”

Mr. Brandfon gave several examples of whom he considers journalists: Matthew Brady’s Civil War Photography, David Halberstam on Vietnam, Woodward and Bernstein exposing Watergate, eyewitness accounts of 9/11, and Ko Htike’s blog on the Myanmar protests.” Other remarks he made:

“Outlets for journalism come in and out of fashion. Some media have staying power because they always look ahead, rather than clinging to passing trends. Unlike good journalism, which is timeless, some things disappear and we don’t miss them, because they’re replaced by something better…however, some things never go out of style:
Truth,
Conviction,
Ideas,
Creativity,
Intelligence,
Insight,
Courage,
Optimism,
and Passion for a great story.
The aforementioned journalist had them and “we like to think Scientific American has them too…”

Mr. Brandfon, we agree on all of the above, including the fact that Scientific American has all of the above and a little bit more…thanks for a great speech and the many words of wisdom that we all need. Your speech’s title said it all, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Yes indeed.

Kevin McKean, vice-president and editorial director of Consumer Union’s Consumer Reports, met with students last week as part of the 23rd annual Journalism Week, sponsored by the Ole Miss Department of Journalism. Although the landscape of the media is changing and will continue to change at an ever increasing pace, McKean made it clear that this does not signal the demise of the industry we know; but instead, shows a shift in the way we make our products relevant. As I have always said, change is the one constant in life. Below are the five points Kevin put forth of the changing landscape of the industry and what we must know to succeed in the industry.

1) There is an historic shift in media habits.
• Audiences have been migrating to electronic delivery for the information they desire. This has been going on for more than 10 years already, and is still going strong.

2) Advertisers chase their audience.
• It may have taken them years to figure out that their audience was migrating online and away from the printed pages, but now that advertisers see this shift, they are deserting traditional media to pursue their customers (as they should).

3) As a result of this shift, traditional media are experiencing a squeeze.
• This squeeze is true for all media but it is most dramatically witnesses in print. And where the main squeeze was traditionally seen in newspapers, magazines are beginning to feel the tightening of their belts as well.
• The root cause of this “disease” is that print ad revenue is declining. While print ad revenue declines, online revenue is growing. This growth may be with high percentages but is seen across a much smaller base. The net result of all these points is a drop in overall revenue of 50% or more.
• But there are other common symptoms that can be seen in the industry: Circulation numbers are down, newsstand sales are continuing on a 15-year slide, newsstand costs have been slowly creeping up, there is a movement of cost-shifting to publishers, direct mail response rates have steadily declined, subscription pricing has dramatically lowered, there have been layoffs, cutbacks, satellite office closings, fewer perks being offered and more.

4) Online media is growing.
• We are seeing growth in the online staff numbers at traditional outlets, and even more dramatic growth in newer, online-only media companies such as Gawker Media. This results in a huge opportunity for anyone starting out in this field.
• There is a resulting disruption of hiring patterns because it is much harder to hire good online journalists today than good print journalists – nearly as hard, for some positions, as
at the beginning of Bubble in late 1990s. The differentiation between print and online hires creates two classes of journalists with two salary structures.

5) We have been witnessing the rise of the citizen-journalist.
• There are millions of amateur reporters around the world that provide low-quality & non-professional content, but have unbeatable timing and opportune locations. Recent examples include: Myanmar, Virginia Tech and Hurricane Katrina. Because of their timing and location, these citizen-journalists have the ability to compete with professional journalists, and not just in news …

And when it comes to the user generated content Kevin had this advice to give…

• It is increasingly important that professional journalists not only use UGC as a source, but that they actively promote its creation in order to serve their audience.
• The aim must be to create “content” not blather.

Words of wisdom from someone who knows what it means to develop content and sell it both in print and on line without a single ad. As I have mentioned many times before on this blog, unless we change the model by which we sell content to our readers and customers, we are not going to have a happy ending…we must be in the business of selling content to customers who count and not in the business of counting customers.

The picture above is for Kevin McKean with one of UM’s journalism majors Meghan Blalock.

15 years and four magazines later David Carey, one of three group presidents at Condé Nast and publisher of Condé Nast Portfolio, has seen the good, the bad and the ugly in magazine publishing. Carey who spoke at the University of Mississippi Department of Journalism‘s 23rd annual Journalism Week recalled his publishing career from the early days at Esquire to the latest launch of CN Portfolio. One word sums it all: passion. And it showed during his presentation and later during his discussions with the magazine students at Ole Miss. In a world filled with people who see the glass half empty, Carey sees it half full. He challenged the students (and future magazine publishers) to:

1. Go outside your comfort zone,
2. The industry is at an inflection point,
3. It’s the job of our competitors to do everything they can to slow you down. And it is your job to use the flexibility of a new product to out think a legacy competitor,
4. You have to have the confidence to hit the re-set button then hold on,
5. Trust your intuition, and
6. Stay very close to your audience and learn how to engage them in new ways.

In short, Carey told the students, “to succeed in this business you have to:

1. Trust your intuition.
2. Learn to ignore conventional wisdom.
3. Discover the most soul-satisfying moments of your career.”

Why should future publishers listen to David Carey? Well he has a 4 – 0 record with the magazines he held the publisher title at. He succeeded in 1991 with Smart Money, later he hit the reset button on both House & Garden and The New Yorker, and now he is the “talk of the town” with Condé Nast Portfolio. Carey’s visit to Ole Miss and his candid discussions with the students was a breath of fresh air from a magazine publisher who is not only passionate about the magazine business, but also “gives a hoot” about this business.

Peter Jacobi is a household name when in comes to magazine editing and writing. The professor emeritus at The University of Indiana is probably more famous than the former basketball coach Bobby Knight (well, at least in the magazine circles). I had the pleasure to meet Professor Jacobi in person for the first time at the first children’s magazine editors retreat at Boyds Mill home of the founders of Highlights for Children magazine. We both spoke at the retreat. He talked about writing and I talked about publishing. What follows is Professor Jacobi’s advice regarding successful writing:

To be a successful writer your article must have:
1. The invitation: the lead or the initial tease; it should even hook the reluctant reader
2. The thesis: telling the reader what the article is all about, sort of an early summary. Perhaps a response to the readers expectations.
3. Purpose: the why it is for me “piece of writing.” It is an extended explanation of the purpose of the piece. The purpose must be made evident (another sales pitch).
4. Direction: you must have a sense of clear direction. Every point along the “verbal highway” must set the course… a crystal clear viewable course…you must write with a compass.
5. Propulsion: a sense of motion, going forward. Your writing must have actual movement with pulse and progress.
6. Memory: pleasure of reading should be followed by a sense of recalling. Good writing should give me “something to remember.”

In short, Professor Jacobi said, “the best writing supplies the ties that bind.” And no matter what, read your article aloud”…yes, Jacobi said, “read it aloud and see if it tells a story and keeps you connected.” Great advice from the master himself.

Under the heading of Barks & Bites, the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily’ Dog newsletter published the following article that I wrote for them in yesterday’s edition. You can access the article here or just keep on reading.

When sporting events see small crowds, you don’t hear the managers bemoaning the death of a sport; when stocks prices fall, you don’t hear CEOs complaining that money is no longer a viable product; but for some reason a drop in new magazine launches makes our industry think our days are numbered.

The numbers this year are lackluster at best, but there is no reason to think this is the first step down a slippery slope to the death of the magazine industry. Just as many other industries experience every few years, we are seeing nothing more than a market correction. I said a few years back that we would see something like this during 2007 and 2008 with a rebound to normal form in 2009.

This year, through the first six months of the year, the numbers were significantly lower than last year’s numbers. In fact, this is the first year that I can remember the numbers dropping by more than 38% from the previous year’s numbers. With 342 new launches through the end of June 2007, this number is well behind the 555 new launches that 2006 saw by the same point last year. Magazines published with a four times frequency or higher totaled 125 or 37% of the total magazines launched in 2007. Last year, the total number of magazines with four times frequency or more during the same period of time was 163 or 29% of the total magazines launched in the first half of 2006. This year also witnessed a drop in the total number of specials and annuals. A total of 188 specials and 19 annuals were born in the first half of 2007 compared with 2006’s 251 specials and 28 annuals. The July numbers looked just as slim with only 36 new launches during the month, a decrease from the 52 titles launched during July of 2006.

These numbers show no sign of improving over the remainder of the year, but this drop shouldn’t mean panic for the publishing world. Reading though the state of the magazine industry may seem alarming at first but keep in mind that while the numbers may show a significant change from the past few years of record launches we still have more magazines alive and kicking on the newsstands today than ever before in our industry.

The number of launches will ebb and flow and it serves to remind us that change is a constant in this industry and we have to remember that the only way we can remain relevant in a constantly advancing world is to take note of the change and adapt to it as it comes.

In the case of public relations professionals, this means a change in the way PR has been done and a movement toward what the rest of the industry is slowly waking up to: The problem in our industry is with the message, not the medium.

When the average person on the street thinks of “public relations,” he or she probably gets images in mind of mass press releases and email blasts to multiple outlets with the entire audience in mind, not the individual. For some time this has been a true representation of how PR has worked—but the numbers I mention above tell us that we have to change that perception and if not the perception, then most definitely the practice.

Over 15,000 magazines are presented to the general public each month on newsstands and in their mail boxes for their choosing. Many of these magazines share similar content and even design. Since the advent of desktop publishing in the 1980s and the increasingly easy means by which anyone can start a magazine, new titles have popped up in record numbers and are starting to see an increase in lifespan on the newsstand. With all the titles out there, the need for individual magazines to specialize and differentiate themselves from other titles is paramount to survival.

Because of this, the old way of blanket press releases cannot work anymore. Where one person could write a press release and blast email it to hundreds of outlets, it is now time to become more individual in the way we disseminate information. We must tailor these press releases to specific audiences and for specific publications.

With budget constraints becoming more and more of an issue to publishers, freelance writers are becoming a more necessary part of the magazine budget. Therefore, press releases specifically tailored for a magazine become a cost efficient way to provide content to readers, while maintaining a feel of title-specific material.

Simply put, before writing a press release or pitch, we need to go back to a pure, basic common sense approach to public relations. Remember to think of your audience, think of the magazine’s audience and keep in mind that you are the matchmaker, putting the two together.

And above all, best of luck.

The only quarterly that is published monthly, Gentlemen’s Quarterly celebrates its 50th anniversary in style, not any style but that of The 50 Most Stylish Men of the Past 50 Years. However only ten made it to the cover and the remaining 40 were featured inside the magazine. The 50th anniversary celebration starts with the letter from the editor in chief Jim Nelson “GQ at Fiddy” and continues in every single page of the 474 pages of the Oct. issue. Of interest is the “GQ Regrets” section that is headlined “What the Hell Were We Thinking?” This section brought back memories of the great clean up work that the late GQ editor Art Cooper did at GQ once he took over the editorship of the magazine in the mid 80s. He left the magazine with nothing to regret. Nelson continued the great work of Cooper and GQ today is at its best. I just wanted to make sure that Art Cooper gets a piece of the celebration cake at GQ. I truly believe that the current GQ owes a lot of its success to the re-branding work of Art Cooper who made the magazine a must for every man and not just a few. Happy Birthday.

During my visit to Germany earlier this week, I was lucky to have had the opportunity to visit The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz and to speak at the Myllykoski Summit ’07 in Munich. During the visit to the museum, I was wowed by the beauty of the first ever printed Bible and was introduced to the whole process of printing following the footsteps of Gutenberg. In addition to the great printing works of Gutenberg, the museum also has the world’s smallest printed book that includes the Lord’s prayer in seven different languages. Another Wow! moment. I bought a copy and could not stop being amazed by the power of print and ink on paper. And, as if I needed another proof that we will have printed stuff as long as we have human beings, my next stop was Munich where I was speaking at the paper company Myllykoski Summit 07 on the future of ink on paper. The company is investing 486 million euros to build the largest paper mill that I have ever seen—a state of the art project that started last Oct. and is nearing completion. You have to visit the mill to believe it. When I gave my speech the next day I challenged all in attendance who still have any doubt about the future of print to go and do two things: visit the paper mill and go to a newsstand—any newsstand—and check the amount of magazines and newspapers carried in Germany. I thought we had a lot of magazines in the United States, but now I have to say that the stands in Germany carry more titles than any other country I have visited. To be true and honest to myself, I was never overwhelmed with a newsstand in my life until I visited the ones in Germany. I was amazed and stunned. I issue the same plea for anyone that still doubts the power of print…go visit Germany, it is worth the price. I thought I saw large newsstands in New York City, in Tokyo, in Helsinki, but what I saw in Germany is second to none. All in all, I came back from my trip with my belief in the future of print deeper than ever. No wonder the title of my speech was Ink on Paper: The Future is NOW.

The October issue of Ladies’ Home Journal features a split newsstands cover with two images of Sandra Lee, the Food Network star. One image has Ms. Lee relaxing with the pumpkins and the other sitting on a chair. Both covers promise Halloween entertaining with the star. Those two covers seem to aim at the LHJ readers who are more of the doers rather than the lookers. However, the magazine’s subscribers received what I call the cover for the lookers…rather than being entertained by doing something (stuff for Halloween) the magazine offers the subscribers Nicole Kidman and her costar Jennifer Jason Leigh on the cover. A nice touch from the magazine is that of reversing the cover images on both the newsstands and the subscribers. Ms. Lee appears in a small image in the lower right corner of the subscribers issue, and Ms. Kidman and Ms. Leigh appear in a similar box in the lower left corner of the single copy issue covers. One more note about LHJ and its covers this month, if you are lucky enough the magazine has a gift for you in some markets in which readers receive a bonus Halloween idea book poly-bagged with the magazine. It will be fun to see whether LHJ readers are more on the doing side (service journalism at its best) or on the looking size (celebrity journalism at its best). This issue of LHJ is a perfect example of how a women’s service journalism magazine can reach that lucrative dual audience of the doers and the lookers. By the way, for those of you lookers, if you really look hard at the Kidman-Leigh cover, you will be able to find a pumpkin in the picture. Let the search begins.