LA Times Sunday magazine

A lot of energy is being exerted over the decision by the Los Angeles Times to have the Sunday magazine run by the business side, not the editorial. (Click here for one such example.)

There's no point in summarizing or rehashing any of this except to say -- I am willing to bet a ton of money that the readers won't even notice the difference. Not one iota. And when that happens the editorial department, which is ranting on endlessly about this, will have even less credibility.

8 reasons magazines are in trouble

Jon Friedman writes a regular column for CBS Marketwatch. His thoughts aren't always leading edge but he seems to have a few good ideas here and there.

This week Jon posted a column on how magazines can embrace the web. (In typical magazine cover line fashion he lists "8 simple rules for succeeding on the Web.") (Click here for full article.)

I won't go into too much detail here on his points but it strikes me as sad that he made these points to a gathering of media executives. The fact that magazine executives still fear the Web or can't find ways to exploit it says tons about the state of the industry.

Journalism as a business -- quote of the day

"Journalists need to remember that before push can come to shove on high ethical issues, the newspaper has to survive as a business"

That's Howell Raines in his May profile of Brian Tierney. (Click here for full article.)

Magazines meet social media

Finally -- here's something that makes sense. Hearst Magazines will start distributing some of its content through several social media sites including Facebook.

It's about time. (Click here for full story in Folio.)

The real measure of magazines

The online world has received a fair amount of grief lately for being hard to measure. (David Churbuck points out one such study that makes this point and he in turn makes an appropriate criticism of this attitude. Click here.) And some of the criticism is fair. (Here's an interesting criticism of how "views" are measure online from Silicon Valley Insider. Click here.)

However, none of what the online world is going through comes close to what magazines go through. (And I am not even going to touch newspapers and TV/radio.)

Today paidContent.org points out that magazine "rate card reported ad revenue" is down for Q1 by 1.2 percent from the same period last year. The fact that it's down is not a surprise. But I am certain this stat is way off. That's simply because no one pays rate card. And nobody's done that for 10 to 15 years. For the longest time the health of the magazine industry has been measured by ad pages. The New York Times measures (celebrates?) this every Monday morning in its business pages. While it's hard to measure true revenue the measurement of ad pages is absolutely meaningless since each publication charges different rates year to year (mostly less) and the rates vary from publication to publication.

I am not sure I know of a better way to measure this since no one is every going to fess up to what their real rates are but it does point out that using page count only masks an even bigger problem.

Get over yourselves

Finalists for the National Magazine Awards have been announced prompting Dylan Stableford to rightly point out how New York centric they've become. (Full post here.)

Actually, nothing new there. And in fact the awards point out a number of flaws in today's magazine industry:

• Instead of worrying about how to attract more readers and to become more relevant the industry is instead patting itself on the back once a year.
• The awards tend to given to those magazines and subject matter that mean something to editors in New York. The reality is that the rest of America's interests rarely match those living in New York.
• Readers don't care about awards. They care about good content. I am willing to bet that winning this award has NEVER resulted in a magazine making more money or increasing circulation.

It's time to get over yourselves.

The boiling frog

I had the chance to attend the Media and Money conference (link to conference site) last week. It's not part of my current world but was a chance to take a peek at my old world, for which I still have a great deal of fondness. However, I also harbor a great deal of frustration at how slowly "mainstream media" is changing. A few observations from sitting in the back rows with the bloggers.

Protection. Until recently I haven't really appreciated why these companies are so slow to change. It's because they have so much to protect. Only a tiny percentage of all advertising is online and cash flows at many big companies are still quite decent. It still doesn't excuse the snail-pace many are following but it explains this a bit better, at least to me.

All about content. Several of speakers pounded this home. Michael Eisner and Sumner Redstone were the most prominent. I think they're right (maybe I think that because that's my sweet spot) but I don't think it's just that. It's also all about the conveyance (channel) and the way it's delivered. Along with that comes credibility. And that's where many mainstream outlets suffer. Not because of Jayson Blair but because they're viewed as the establishment and not part of the leading edge.

Be afraid. I don't think enough are. Michael Schrage (bio) asked the people on his panel (James Brady, washingtonpost.com, Nora Ephron, Huffingtonpost.com, Susan Lyne, Martha Stewart, Susan Whiting, Nielsen Company) if they weren't the least bit concerned that Google (which professes to be a technology company, not a media company) had already figured out how to sell ads against content and make a damn good living at it. All the panelists said no, or something to that effect. Not the right answer in my opinion.

Don't ignore the techology. Several executives professed to not know very much about the technology now conveying content. Nora Ephron made several comments about how little she understood how blogs work other than her posting comments. Susan Lyne talked about seeing her child's Facebook account on occasion but not about joining Facebook or understanding it. (She did mention she viewed Facebook as a modern day Filofax. Interesting comment but I think it sells Facebook, and other social networking sites, short.) In short, if I were one of those executives I'd be diving head first into all these tools to get a better understanding of how this stuff works. The perception is already out there that many mainstream media types haven't a clue. (See example.)

Google won't hire me. Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair columnist, (news clips) made a great point during his session, The New Frontier in Media Investing. I am not sure if he was making a statement or a question but he wondered aloud if anyone on his panel (or at the conference) could be hired by Google today. Michael's answer was probably not. Call Google whatever you want but it is shaping the way we experience getting information and the fact that the most powerful people are not hireable by Google means something. It means these people better understand the new frontier and, more important, use it.

Other coverage:

paidContent.org
Silicon Alley Insider
Read/WriteWeb

Is it really possible to be objective?

A recent post (maybe more of a rant) by Alan Meckler of Jupitermedia over how his company is portrayed on Wikipedia reminds me that I've long thought that it's almost impossible to be objective. (Link to post here.)

Alan's beef is that the entry is innaccurate. I have no way of judging if he's right or not, nor do I really care. But it seems that every institution that tries to be "objective" from the New York Times to Wikipedia needs to realize that anything a human writes is by definition not objective. Just providing both sides of the story and trying to stick to facts is not enough. Because in the end it depends on what facts you include, in what context they're portrayed.

In the case of Jupitermedia Alan is taking offense at some controversy he says never occurred:

Then read the next controversy. There is reference to something about social networking at JupiterResearch. First of all we do not own JupiterResearch anymore and secondly as far as I am aware there was never a controversy about social networking, JupiterResearch and Jupitermedia. Clearly whomever added this "controversy" was promoting a book or service or something that has nothing to do with facts or history.

Alan is objecting to something he's not "aware" of. Thus, this controversy probably could have happened. Or it could have been important to the writer, but not the company. Might it just be better to admit the article aspires to be objective but the reality is it isn't?

I am beginning to realize that what I call "point of view journalism", something The Economist is excellent at, is the wave of the future. Because there is so much media out there most consumers of mainstream media already come in with a perspective (bias?) to begin with and nothing is going to change their mind. (If someone thinks the New York Times is liberal, it's pretty certain they will feel that way not matter what the paper write. Same goes for Fox News and its perceived conservative slant.)

I can't talk now

I am always a bit amused when I read a profile of an editor who refuses to speak to the reporter or only answers in an email.

From Michael Calderone's New York Observer profile of Portfolio and Joanne Lipman: (Link to full article.)

Ms. Lipman would only respond to questions by e-mailing a statement, which presented the Roth piece ..."

This strikes me odd for several reasons:

1. Editors/reporters are always asking others to be quoted but when it is asked of them they are reluctant. Seems a bit hypocritical.
2. By not answering the questions in person the editor/reporter is basically acknowledging that it's pretty scary being on the other end of the reporter's notebook.

I remember the first time I was interviewed by a newspaper reporter after working on newspapers for many years. What I thought I said and what appeared in print were vastly different. Stupid me for not being smarter.

Thus, I commend those who are rightfully cautious. But at the same time don't ask of others what you won't do yourself.

Magazine subs -- an experiment

I get about 10 magazines in the office, most of them related to business.

I have decided to let most of the subs run out for two reasons:

1. I am able to track most of the content online through Google Reader. Since I don't read most of the articles (I just skim to see if there's something I should be aware of) the Reader seems to serve its purpose. The only exceptions are The Economist and The New Yorker. Both, in view, are best consumed in print. Their lengthy articles don't translate well online.

2. I can't keep track of when the subs really expire. This has been going on for years and drives me nuts. I sometimes get renewal notices a year ahead of the expiration date. I finally started tracking expiration dates but seems like a lot of work for something so unimportant. I also don't like the few magazines that offer (is "offer" the right word?) automatic renewal. Feels like a runaway train -- something I have no control over.

As someone who has worked in the magazine industry it saddens me (a little) to do this but it's been a long time coming.

Update: I recently stumbled across this post from Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor Wired. He makes the same point but far more convincingly and with more evidence. (Click here for post.)

Tipping point

Child is the latest to go from print to online only.

Earlier in the week we saw InfoWorld switch.

Not surprising to see InfoWorld make the switch. They were one of the first print publications to create a Web site (1994). Interesting, though, that Child has made the switch. They don't cater to a young (teenage) crowd and it's not about technology.

My sense is you will see a bunch of print publications make the switch real soon.

Once again, an explanation

Time has launched a new design and just as the WSJ did a few months ago, management feels compelled to explain why they're doing this. Seems a redesign should not have to be justified, nor explained. It should be like walking into a well-designed house. It should just make sense.

No explanation necessary, except for the few who are in the trade.

At least Time spared us the pages of explanation of how the new design works. But they should have gone all the way and skipped the editorial explaining why.

Being funny isn't so easy

I've always been a fan of the New Yorker and its cartoons and always thought it would be an easy way to make a living. However, when they started the caption contest at the back of the book I realized how hard it can be. Isn't that always the case -- an end product that is concise, well constructed is often incredibly difficult to achieve.

(Reminds me of a conversation in college when we were all sitting around marveling at how much money was made over such simple things such as Post-It Notes, etc. Someone then challenged the group to come up with an equally simple, and profitable, idea by the end of the night. Suffice to say I'm still thinking.)

Here's a fascinating look at the selection process for New Yorker cartoons from the Washington Post. An excerpt:

Picking cartoons isn't as easy as it looks. "The funniest cartoon is not
necessarily the best cartoon," says Mankoff. "Funnier means that you laugh
harder, and everybody's gonna laugh harder at more aggressive cartoons, more
obscene cartoons. It's a Freudian thing. It gives more relief. But is it a
better joke? To me, better means having more truth in it, having both the humor
and the pain and therefore having more meaning and more, uh, uh . . . " He
searches for a word, then finds it: "poetry."

Can someone truly be objective?

I grew up thinking that by presenting both sides of a story an author is being objective. The longer I think about it the more I realize that it's not the case. Everyone has a point of view on a subject and even if an author does his best to present both points of view, the reader will come out with his own conclusion. It is also nearly impossible, I contend, for a human being to not introduce his or her bias into a news report. Witness the New York Times which adheres to the highest of journalist standards but is constantly accused of being biased by both sides of the aisle.

Recently I've grown more and more intrigued by The Economist which long ago realized that "point of view journalism" is the wave of the future and is one way to distinguish themselves from the pack. From a recent profile of John Micklethwait, editor of The Economist, in The Independent:

It is unashamedly opinionated and when Rupert Pennant-Rea (editor from 1986 to
1993) described it as a "Friday viewspaper" he was perhaps ahead of his time in
recognising the public appetite for such a forthright product.

Full text of profile here.

Today's New York Times profiles the "new" Time and its decision to present more points of view. Seems the idea is not as new as some people think it is.