Magazines Journalism Principles and Practices Magazines are volatile

Magazines Journalism Principles and Practices

Magazines are volatile businesses. . . ● Lears ● Wired ● Car Wash News (? ? ? )

Volatile right from the start Ben Franklin went out of business with General Magazine ● Bad roads, not a local medium ● Not until late 1800’s when became viable. . . o o o Larger population Sophisticated postal system Cash, literacy, people living in cities

Magazines Were First Investigative Medium ● ● Harper’s -- Boss Tweed Ladies’ Home Journal - Patent Medicines Mc. Clure’s - Ida Tarbell and Rockefeller Muckrakers - Led to anti-trust laws, reform in meat industry

Magazines developed in climate of the times Literary. . . ● Harper’s Mc. Clure’s published fiction ● Dickens, Poe, published in magazines ● After WWI, less parochial view of the World New Yorker, Algonquin Round Table

Climate of times, continued. . . News. . . ● Time in 1923 - spun off Fortune, SI< Life, People ● Time started as digest - solution to “information crisis” ● Time developed its own writing method

Climate of times, continued. . . Picture magazines. . . ● Life, 1936 ● Look, 1937 ● High-quality photography showed war, poverty, birth of a child

But TV threatened to kill industry. . . ● Television became mass entertainer ● General-interest media declined ● But almost by accident, magazines looked to. . .

Lifestyle Playboy, 1953. . . ● Girl next door ● MM pictures Focus on what was NOT in magazine ● Through 1960 s, tighter focus on lifestyle. . . ● Strength and Health, Flex ● Modern Maturity ● Ebony

Magazines Today About 7, 000 print according to best guess, but hard to define. Usually. . . ● Bound ● High Quality ● Cover

Categories. . . ● By content. . . o Consumer o Trade o Institutional o Newsletters ● By circulation method. . . o Newsstand store o Distributed free o Paid circulation (in advance) o Controlled circulation

Magazine economy. . . ● While many magazines go digital, industry is hurting ● According to some surveys, only one in three Americans reads a magazine regularly

Circulation trending downward, says Pew (http: //stateofthemedia. org/2012/magazines-are-hopes-for-tablets-overdone/magazines-by-the-numbers/)

Still, magazine has some advantages. . . ● ● Narrow demographic Very durable Customizable High CPM

CPM is really basis for all media advertising. . . ● As audience becomes more narrow, it is generally more attractive ● Magazine CPM could be $45, network newscast $5

Finally, remember. . . ● Limited universe of advertisers means pressure ● Some, but not all, sell “adjacencies, ” or show copy in advance to advertisers ● As a source of “news, ” sometimes distorted