Mr. Magazine

This week’s cover of Newsweek happens to reflect editor Jon Meacham’s “two favorite topics”: God and War. Meacham shared his views about his favorite topics and many others in an hour-long Q and A session with the journalism students at the University of Mississippi during a meeting with them on the Oxford campus. The Newsweek editor told students that these are “interesting times” and that the business of “printing on dead trees” will continue to be with us in the future. Armed with a circulation of over three million copies every week, a readership of over 20 million readers, and five to five and a half million unique visitors on the web, Meacham compared the reading habits of consumers in print and online. Meacham said “people do not read long form on the internet. 500 words is the max. An average cover story of Newsweek is 4,000 words, so it takes eight pages on the web.” Meacham asked the students to guess the percentage of viewers/readers who go from page one to page two on the web. “80% DO NOT…they drop before they flip to page two.” And how many stay until page 8 on the web with the story, he asked and quickly answered, “My mom will be the only one.” He reminded the students that journalism is not for the faint hearted and the future is always going to be for good writing…however he warned the students that we have to earn people’s attention and respect their most precious resource, time (I am sure he did not mean TIME). “In a blizzard of choices,” Meacham said, “To reach your audience, you need to be eloquent in the narrative with something new on every page to stop the readers.” Good words of wisdom for everyone who believes that our future is based on good reporting, good writing, good editing and above all a good sense of news judgment. Thank you Jon, we indeed live in “interesting times.”

For more than 40 years, Cosmopolitan magazine has been introducing readers to all kinds of sex and sex positions, from the amazing to the shocking sex. Issue after issue the upper left hand corner under the name has been reserved to what many believe is the main reason the magazine sells almost two million copies every month on the nations newsstands. However, one type of sex never made it to the Cosmo cover: Astronaut Sex. Well, thanks to Texas Monthly magazine the new “amazing and shocking” sex lands on the cover of Texas Monthly and not Cosmo. Well, I am sure that in a month or two Cosmo will enhance the coverage of Astronaut Sex and will give us 31 new positions to enjoy Astronaut Sex. Well, as you prepare for that, make sure you will practice “safe sex” that will not land you in jail!

A joint venture between Hearst Magazines and Hoffman Media of Birmingham, AL is bringing Victoria magazine back to life and at the same time adding to the southern expansion of Hearst Magazines. Few years ago Hearst bought the Atlanta based magazine Veranda and yesterday they announced that they partnered with Hoffman Media, publisher of Cooking with Paula Deen, Southern Lady, and A Taste of the South magazines to bring Victoria magazine back to life. Victoria was founded in 1987 as a spin off of Good Housekeeping under the editorialship of “the father of new magazine launches” John Mack Carter and was the brainchild of her founding editor Nancy Lindemeyer. The magazine became an instant success with readers and in few years hit the million copies circulation mark. However, in 2003, and without any warning signs Hearst pulled the plug on the magazine citing lack of advertising pages and revenues. The magazine, according to my sources, had one of the highest subscription renewals at the time the magazine was folded. It was yet another sign from our industry leaders that they want to continue to use the same old model of subsidy by advertisers rather than readers paying the fair price of the magazine. It was like telling the millions of readers of Victoria, that we care more about the fifty advertising customers more than the two or three million readers. It is a sad but true fact in the thinking of most of our big “New York” based publishers. Well, now come Hoffman Media, the little engine that could, to bring Victoria back to life. Victoria will be entirely under the direction of Hoffman Media. The plan for the magazine is to launch in October and to hit the 250,000 circulation mark after only two issue. I am sure that both John Mack Carter and Nancy Lindemeyer are delighted to hear about their baby’s rebirth. Congratulations to both.

For almost five years now I have been preaching the need for newspapers to become daily magazines, both in content and shape, if they are going to survive the forces of change. Last month I wrote about this same matter (you can read it here). Now, my friend Sandy Woodcock, the director of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation e-mails me with the news that the founder of such a daily magazine is going to speak at the World Newspaper Congress, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa from June 3 -6. Here is the exact description of the session Gert Edlinger, the managing director of the Austrian paper Osterreich.
“IS THE DAILY MAGAZINE THE FUTURE FOR NEWSPAPERS?
A new Austrian daily blurs the lines between newspapers and magazines, and some say this is the future for newspapers in general. Gert Edlinger, the Managing Director of Osterreich, will discuss the innovative format and content strategy at the World Newspaper Congress, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 3 to 6 June next…
The compact, full-colour Osterreich, launched in September 2006 in one of the most concentrated newspaper markets in Europe, mixes magazine and newspaper styles in one package, with several sections printed on glossy paper and stapled on the spine. These are not typical magazine inserts: they are daily sections, with daily deadlines that are paginated and printed along with the other daily sections. To use both newspaper and magazine quality paper in the same publication, Osterreich and its printing partners had to develop an innovative printing and workflow system that allows for both cold and heat set processes during the same printing run. The newspaper claims to be the first to use this technology. The high-quality paper allows the newspaper to attract a new brand of luxury goods and other advertisers who insist on magazine quality for their ads. Mr Edlinger will present the case of Osterreich during a session on Shaping the Future of the Newspaper at the Congress, which will examine new print products, new digital revenue generation, the best advertising strategies and the reorganization of newspaper companies for the multi-platform newspaper.”