Mr. Magazine

I met Dave Eggers for the first time in 1994 right after he published Might magazine which I have selected in that year as one of the most notable launches of 1994. I was so impressed (and still is) by the magazine that folded after a year or so for lack of funding. Dave tried his best to secure funding for the magazine, including sending a letter to John Mack Carter at Hearst (who was publishing my Guide at that year) asking for Hearst to be involved with Might. The response from John was negative and Dave, in a very smart move, published the letter from John in Might.
Well, times have changed and as fate will have it, Dave’s odds in book and magazine publishing have changed and he is in no need to write letters to big companies asking for help in funding his great magazine ideas. He can do it on his own (or with his wife) and in a completely different way. In the November 2007 issue of The Progressive Dave is interviewed in depth about his books, organizations and magazines. One paragraph caught my attention from that interview. It was the one dealing with Might, McSweeney’s and The Believer. Nina Siegal asked him whether he fears the corrupting influence of the mass market. Here is part of his answer (which works also as a great response to all the naysayers who continue to spread the word that no one can start a magazine in this day and age):

“With Might, we did it the dumb way. We thought we had to do 100,000 circulation and we had to have all this advertising, and it was never going to happen and no one got paid, we were all perpetually disappointed, and it folded. We found out that wasn’t the way to do it.
With McSweeny’s and The Believer we decided to do the math better, to depend on the readers, not on advertisers or anyone else. If the readers think it’s good, it will keep growing. That way, there’s no compromise. The Believer ahs a circulation of 17,000 to 20,000 and I don’t know if it will ever surpass that. And get this: Because of reader support, McSweeney’s, the literary quarterly, is able to subsidize some of the more eccentric projects we take on. It’s bizarre but it can work if you depend on the wisdom of your readers.

In The Rainbow Room and on the 64th floor of Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan the fourth annual Custom Publishing Council’s Pearl Awards were presented to several magazines, on line websites and annual reports. This is my second year in co-presenting the Pearl awards to well deserving custom publications and websites. My co-presenter Laurel Touby, CEO and Founder of mediabistro.com and I presented the awards to the winners from a field of more than 550 entries. Since I try not to talk or write about events that I am involved in, here is a link to Joe Pulizzi’s blog where he reported on the event. Check his blog and check the list of all the great outlets that won the gold, silver and bronze awards for 2007. On a side-note, the Custom Publishing Council is sponsoring a Custom Content Conference to be held next year on March 9 – 11 in the city of New Orleans, LA. For more info on the conference click here.

The other day as I was ready to open what I thought was my usual monthly subscriber’s “black plastic wrapped Playboy magazine,” I had one of the biggest surprises waiting for me inside that black plastic wrap. It was not Playboy magazine but rather Islamica magazine. The black plastic wrap revealed the new issue of Islamica magazine inside it and not Playboy. The black plastic wrap is where all similarities between the two magazines end. Islamica’s cover story is on Media Wars and the Aljazeera effect, while Playboy’s cover story is on Hollywood’s newest sex star. What a surprise! I understand the reasons behind Playboy hiding its cover under black plastic wrap, but I do not understand why Islamica magazine has to use the same technique. Are we really reaching the stage where we have to protect subscribers of Islamica magazine the same way we protect Playboy subscribers from the watchful eye of the post office? Judge for yourself. Above is the before and below is the after.

A brief, but interesting report on the current changes at Reader’s Digest is in today’s mediabistro.com: FishbowlNY. The headline and the opening paragraph follows:

Big Changes at Reader’s Digest
Since February’s takeover of Reader’s Digest Association by the private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, the 85-year old company has undergone many changes. Mary Berner was named President and CEO. In March, Eva Dillon was named President. Jeff Wellington was named publisher at the end of September. And last month, Bill Beaman left as Reader’s Digest Washington Bureau Chief to become EIC of Campaigns and Elections.

To read the entire article click here.

As a side bar for the article mediabistro.com: FishbowlNY interviewed me via e mail on my take on the changes at Reader’s Digest. The headline and the opening paragraph follows:

“Mr. Magazine” on the New Reader’s Digest
”Mr. Magazine” Samir Husni is the Chair of the Journalism Department at the University of Mississippi, and, in his spare time, a dedicated blogger on the subject of magazines. Dr. Husni has been critical of the direction Reader’s Digest has been veering in under the leadership of Jacqueline Leo. This past July, after sinus surgery, Dr. Husni — stirred by the connection with DeWitt Wallace, who conceived of RD in a hospital — blogged a critique of the new magazine.

To read the entire interview click here.

Yes, you’ve read that right. There is a great future for newspapers and you do not have to take my word for it. Just read the cover story and look at the numbers published in the November issue of Monocle, Tyler Brulé’s one-year old British magazine. Brulé writes in his preface, “Print media might be faced with some serious challenges but it’s time to stop calling its relevance into question — that goes to newspapers too. In many markets the humble daily has never looked so good, in others there’s a bit of work to be done…” Monocle offers a three part package on the future of newspapers including a look at the redesign of the leading German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a review of “the next best thing” the Dutch newspaper NRC Next, and a look into the future of newspapers. In addition to the three parts, Monocle sums the facts on newspapers from the World Association of Newspapers. Some of those facts:
1. There has been an explosion in the number of new titles, and now a record 11,000 daily papers are produced worldwide.
2. Global newspaper circulation is up almost 10 percent over the past five years.
3. Over 550 million people globally buy one every day.
A summary of this package will not give justice to this great series of stories, so try to get yourself a copy of the November issue of Monocle. It is worth every penny of your $10. I bought the magazine in Amsterdam on my way from a week of work in Finland. It was the best reading on the plane that I’ve done in a long time. One of the best quotes I have read in the article was by Jan Paul van der Wijk the chief of design for NRC Next, “News is free, but information is not — we tell people the news but do more with it.” Visit Monocle here or order a copy of the magazine at www.universalnewsondemand.com

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.