Journalism Principles and Practices 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... 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 McClure’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 McClure’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 1960s, 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... Consumer Trade Institutional Newsletters By circulation method... Newsstand and store Distributed free Paid circulation (in advance) 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
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