Do Magazines Matter?
In light of the very interesting announcement about Crisis below, here’s a question for the blog. Do magazines matter? Would it matter to you if Commonweal weren’t in print format anymore? And why?
I think there are two issues. One, the print form itself, and two, the process that goes into putting together an edited magazine. In the print form, the pressure to edit must come from the issue page limit, at least to some extent: there is a certain degree of selectivity, and demand to be concise, built in to the fact that a magazine issue can encompass only so many pages. That pressure, I assume, is gone from cyberpublication. But there is no inherent reason that a cyberpublication could not be subjected to the same rigorous standards as print.
As an author, where I write makes a difference to what I write; I think of the print form as more serious, and requiring more careful thought, than the blog form, which I view more as a conversation. I also think having editors is a good thing; they make what I write better. At the same time, I like what’s in print form to be online too, it gets a wider circulation that way.
Maybe the difference, then, is between an “online magazine” (like a regular magazine, but in cyberspace) and online blog ( like a conversation)?
I don’t read on-line publications as thoroughly as I do print magazines. A magazine is more portable. It also presents itself as a whole, while the on-line version of any publication is presented as bits and pieces. For instance, I find myself reading New Yorker articles in the print magazine that I would never click through to on the website.
Print editions, for me, serve 2 purposes: reading on the metro, and reading while sitting on the toilet. Magazine-length articles are, shall we say, of an appropriate length. (Sorry for the scatalogical reference — in my defense, saints like Thomas More did this all the time!)
Yes, I agree with Ken and MM above, though maybe some account of my experience with National Catholic Reporter may be of interest.
Just before COMMONWEAL went online and offered an online subscription, I’d paid for a two year sub to the paper edition. I can’t afford to pay for both C’weal and NCR, so I used to read the free content of the NCR online. Then when the NCR blog came along I joined that and find it very interesting. It is less immediate now that it is trying 6 mths moderation, and I hope they will risk “free” posting again, or eliminate the long gaps. But now that the NCR mag is very nearly all premium content and inaccesssible to the poor, I don’t bother to read it. The NCR blog has many very interesting contributors and subscribers, and the mag doesn’t seem of primary importance.
I understand the financial problems associated with putting a mag or a newspaper entirely online, but the advantage comes when you can reach more people. I read “foreign” newspapers online, and formerly I used to read an English Jewish newspaper too. This latter has, unwisely, gone on restricted view and so does not get its news and comments to a wider readership.
Cathleen, I agree that writing for print requires more discipline and rigour. It also needs a certain length. A blog can be a quick shared thought between friends. We are surely very fortunate if we have both.
Pew’s Press and the People did a report on newspaper and Internet readers that might be of tangential interest here:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=282
I think print still has more credibility simply because it takes a lot more effort and money to get something printed. You’re not going to put just anything in an expensive medium like print without making sure it represents you well and serves your purposes.
Print publications lend whatever credibility they have to their Web sites, even if the Web site offers new and different information from the print piece.
Students tell me employers still want to see clips that have appeared in print to verify the qualilty and saleability of their work.
I think the reading public is well aware that they have to approach Web-only publications with a certain amount of skepticism.
Anybody with Internet access and an opinion can set up a blog.
Both possess obvious different advantages to readers, as already noted.
I wonder if readership age is a critical issue – just strikes me that younger readers may prefer the immediate on line approach that dominates the world they inhabit.
Then there’s cost – if economics decide, print media will find it tougher sledding down the road if not already.
Being an old stick in the mud, I prefer hard copy.
Hard copy for all the reasons stated, though the greater potential audience with an online version is an undeniable plus. Still, computers are not yet ubiquitous throughout much of the Third World.
And Thomas More is one of my favorite saints. It’s personally comforting to know that he and I share at least one thing in common.
For what it’s worth, I have trouble reading online content of any length so I print out the longer articles anyway.
Another intangible factor for me is that the print version lets me into the ‘world’ of the magazine in a way that doesn’t happen when I’m interacting with the material with a web browser.
To me, there are certain print magazines for which the front cover is like the wrapping on a surprise Christmas present.
Mags and papers are infinitely “more better” than the internet! Online versions do not contain all that is in print. I usually eviscerate mags and save or send portions to friends and enemies. It isn’t the same if done as an email.
Call me old-fashioned, which I most certainly am! It comes from treasuring the content and tactile nature of reading materials in my youth long before there was TV and the internet.
In a day coming soon, computers may be as ubiquitous as printed paper became in the 1500′s. Where powerful, wireless computers became the size of a notepad, I could see the attraction of a great shift. If computers of that size were cheaper than, say a book or magazine subscription, I could see them replacing many trillions of printed pages.
The medium of the written word, edited, will always be with us. What might become obsolete is the need to publish on paper, on a schedule beholden to printing and mail restrictions.
I suspect that online ventures will need to surpass print editing standards (not hard, really) and free themselvse of the remnants of mail-run publications.
Does Commonweal online publish daily? It could. More thoughts here: http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/strategies-for-the-post-magazine-publishing-world/
I like to have a book in my hand because reading a book online is just too much Whereas a magazine is fine online. Time is the problem and online access is the winner there. And online has so many other advantages-one can minimize the screen, talk on the phone, have something to drink and even write email or other pieces.
If an article is a classic or is by someone that I sense will not be a waste of time, then I might prefer to be alone reading hard copy.
As far as the magazines I subscribe to, I read most of them, if not all, online. It is significant that the magazines that I read online made their mark in print. I read the NY Times hard copy every morning. It just would seem ghastly not to. The breakfast table with coffee and conversation cannot be duplicated online. Further, there would be the danger that I might just enrage my other half and that’s a no no.
Cathy or any contributor. How about a thread on the kind of articles and writing of magazines like Commonweal or America. I doubt if all the talent in the Catholic world is being adequately represented there. Is it budgetary or is it limited thinking? I notice that the grants given to Commonweal for articles seemed to have expanded its capability in this regard.
Because I live in the boonies and have limited resources, I too have tried web-based subscriptions.
As a long time reader of Commonweal, who pays extra, to have the magazine delivered by air-mail to Canada, so I can get it before publication date, I appreciate the fact that a hard copy subscription gives me a digital subscription because when the air mail system breaks down, and it does at least once a year, the snail mail can take as long as 60 plus days to get here. Do you know that the U. S. Postal Service doesn’t consider it late unless thirty days have passed? I guess Canada Post has the same standard. (sigh)
My first digital subscription experience was with America, three years ago. It was good but like others have reported it is not like having the hard copy. I did not read it as diligently as I do Commonweal. In my second year, I switched to a digital subscription of the National Catholic Reporter because, as another poster has said, they put so much on what I call Pay-per-view.
But a funny thing happened, I started getting a paper subscription in addition to the digital one. What I discovered was that I read the paper version far more thoroughly than the digital version but I did read the digital one first because it took two weeks to get the “paper”. This is particularly evident because this year I only get the digital version. Even though I get e-mail notice of the paper’s posting, I go there read two or three articles/pages and then often do not find the time to go back.
Because newspapers and even Commonweal articles are reasonably short you can read one over breakfast or lunch and it is there at hand when you return. That is something at this time you can not do with digital copy although I imagine with the latest iphone you can and I suspect with future bookreaders that are in the works you will be able to do as well. Both will no doubt threaten the paper version in even more.
The availability of the web plus the joy of being retired has also allowed me to sample other Catholic publications most of which I had never heard before either retirement or the internet. Examples would be America, The Tablet, U.S. Catholic, First Things, Crisis plus all the far right issues like The Wanderer etc.
It should be interesting, to see what happens when after reading The Tablet for a half dozen years on the free internet teasers, I joined with another person in a two for one 6 month subscription to The Tablet. It is way too expensive otherwise. But it does prove that web-site promos do pay off with hard copy subscriptions. I’d certainly prefer a hard copy of NCR. And I don’t think it is just my age.
One final point, since last September I have been posting to my website called Tomorrow’s Trust. It’s on Catholic education in Canada. I tried to make it more than a blog although it does have a blog-within-a-blog. I have to agree with Grant the issue of editing is a fascinating one. I write for other paper publications and know the process and time that goes into editing copy for print only. The pressure to produce posts on a daily basis must resemble that of a newspaper as opposed to a magazine. Also the resources are different.
When time lines are such that I can afford to have a full edit completed as in a series I did last November the paper form works and is best. But under normal circumstances, I post or others post, my editor goes in and really only does minor edits rather than major ones.
It really is a new world of publishing and the rules are being rewritten as we live, work and breath.
it is not germane to this discussion but everyone is references the same magazines i subscribe to!!!
isn’t there a thoughtful magazine that i can read( paper or online) that dissents from NCR, AMERICA,COMMONWEAL. no, i guess not
To Mary Bergan:
Yes, there is: The New Oxford Review, out of northern California. They dissent most vigorously from Commonweal, and with literary flair. They are also online.
Mary–
Why would you want to read anything that dissents from Commonweal, America, and NCR, Mr. Schwartz’ recommendation notwithstanding? :)
And The New Oxford Review seems like an interesting publication. Here’s its subscription pitch:
“HAVE YOU THE GUTS?
Yes, many hate us. Ah, but they
also fear us. That’s why many others
love us. If you hunger for the red meat
of Catholicism, subscribe!
(No bozos or sissies, please.)”
And in keeping with the red meat theme, the “Gear Shoppe” sells “I’d Rather Be Roasting Heretics” T-shirts.
Vegetarian Catholicism, anyone?
My first thought when I read this post was: The difference between a print magazine and an online magazine is that an online magazine, unlike a print magazine, can’t survive financially unless a lot of people are throwing a lot of free money at it.
The problem is that publishers haven’t yet figured out how to turn a profit from online advertising. If advertising accounts for the major portion of a magazine’s income, a switch to the Web is tantamount to suicide.
There are reportedly exceptions, but they are too brand new, I think, to provide a solid foundation for extrapolation or prediction. (I’m thinking of sites like Gawker and Talking Points Memo, which people reportedly earn livings from. I haven’t the foggiest idea how.)
It may be the case that the Crisis team already survives on charity, and advertising returns aren’t an issue for them. In any case, I’m interested enough to monitor the story.
Bradley,
Gerry McCarthy’s little web-based Catholic zine called The Social Edge (www.thesocialedge.com) has been in existence for over five years and he actually seems to be making a living from advertising.
If you look at his cost page and count the number and types of ads you can estimate his annual income.
He won’t get rich soon but he does pay his writers a very small nominal sum.
Please allow two comments:
1) If a subscriber to Commonweal reads and shares the issues but ultimately stacks them on a bookshelf, they can be read years later. A few months ago, the transit enthusiast who ran a huge, interesting site of message boards and photos became fed up with nasty posters and, without warning, pulled the plug. I had not saved any of the material to my hard drive. The point: print may last longer than websites, and the subscriber has control over how long he keeps the printed issues. Commonweal cannot reclaim or pull the plug on issues on my shelf. Furthermore, hard drives and programs will probably become obsolete as each new program or device is introduced. Paper may happen to crumble or burn, but I have read books printed centuries ago.
2) For some reason, the webmasters who create web editions often leave out part of the magazine. On the web, I cannot find the most important part of the printed Commonweal I receive, the letters to the editor.
Joe McMahon
I like the relative permanence of print journals, the opportunity to reread them at my leisure, and the way you can follow a topic in depth over a long period of time. I like to save special issues so I will have them at hand when some important topic is re-addressed, and I read my favorite journals from cover to cover, including the ads and—always– the letters to the editor. And, as with the daily newspapers over breakfast, there is a certain pleasure in sharing a fresh copy with a partner. (Sometimes, since the postal service in Northern Westchester could be faster, we will read a hot article on the Commonweal website before our copy has arrived, but if it is a good piece, it is good to know the print copy will soon be on hand. (And it will be pounced on no less eagerly when it arrives.)
An edited print journal of opinion is designed and shaped by its staff to offer a distinctive take on a certain set of topics, ideas, concerns. If the editing is sharp, there will be a consistent standard of clarity and weight to the writing, the visuals will be pleasing and appropriate, and the choice of material in each issue will fit into a larger pattern that will develop organically over time. I suppose these things can be said of an online journal as well, but I wonder whether its work sits as well in memory as print journalism. I watch the PBS evening news every night, and give it an hour’s attention. It’s like an online journal in some ways. Individual pieces may be well presented and thought-provoking, but you don’t get that chance to pick them up and look at them again, argue with them some more, give them the attention they deserve, that you do when the journal sits there on your coffee table. And the extra clarity and focus that a well-edited journal assures is hard to achieve in a more ephemeral format.
Okay, I will admit one downside to the print journals: they do accumulate. Our solution is willow baskets around the house where fairly recent issues of Commonweal, America, NCR, and The Tablet can be stashed along with copies of TLS, NYRB, LRB, etc.. Sooner or later most of them go, but mostly later.
Men who want to read in the bathroom like St. Thomas More in the Loo should talk to their doctors about this practice. It’s not all that good for you.
It’s not all that good for your marriage, either, if you take a leisurely approach to your reading and your wife has to be various places at specific times.
I have willow baskets around the house, too (maybe this is a “woman thing” like the guy in the john thing …)
When enough mags accumulate in the basket, I take them to school where one of the faculty set up a wall file outside the writing labs for mags the students can browse and take. The idea was to encourage students to subscribe to something besides People, Cosmo and GQ.
One of the real benefits of online mags (and news broadcasts) that have good search engines is that you don’t have to rifle through the baskets to find what you’re looking for.
thanx , bob sand wmc
i’ll try the oxford review on line but won’t subscribe un less i’m happy.
i give my copy to a man who cant afford to subscribe but he has no one who is ready to think so it dies there.
I need the online version because i’ve nothing to refer to.
do we feel badly aboutt the trees that feed our hard copy?
Mary,
re: trees,
I hope not because I live in a paper town that produces fine paper and we have one paper making machine closed down and if the other goes its curtains.
Remember trees grow, they are plants like the wheat that makes your bread etc, etc.
Mary, paper can be recycled; computers, not so much. That thing you’re typing on (to say nothing of my own) is chock-a-block full of really nasty, poisonous, un-biodegradable stuff.
Oh, and thanks, jborst. Real numbers are very interesting!
Online zines are here to stay and their vigorous competition with print magazines will only increase. Print magazines need to respond and respond fast. Otherwise, they will be gone in 5 to 10 years.
Why? Computers have allowed consumers to mix mediums: text, photos, video, audio, live, discussion into *one place*: the home computer. Thus, TV and radio and magazines and newspapers and books and audio all are coming together on the WWW.
What I think is *most* interesting about the Crisis announcement is the name change from “Crisis” to “TheCatholicInsider” (which is a name already in used by priest podcaster, Fr. Rodercik…). Why the name change? And why a name already popularly in use esp. to many online Catholics?
Barbara K. Baker
The July/August issue of Crisis contains a column by Brian Saint-Paul explaining the transition. Here’s a Zenit story on the move:
http://www.zenit.org/article-20177?l=english
I’m not at all convinced that the magazine industry is in decline, as Saint-Paul claims. Apparently the new iteration of Crisis will be free of charge. In order to compensate subscribers who won’t get the full year or two they paid for, Crisis will offer audio CDs from the Morley Institute.