Mailbox Anchor

According to the Columbia Journalism Review (12/27/12), the US Postal Service is entertaining the idea of selling hard copy magazine subscriptions.  Although magazines make up only a small percentage of mailed items, CJR says that internally the Postal Service calls magazines "the anchor in the mailbox."  The idea is that customers value magazines and, while checking the mail for them, may also take notice of junk mail in the box.  Without magazines, the logic goes, customers may not even check their mailboxes.
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/usps_may_start_selling_mag_sub.php?page=all

Birth of a "New Genre"?

In a recent New York Times critic's notebook piece,  Dwight Garner says he's bullish about Kindle Singles. ("Miniature E-Books Let Journalists Stretch Legs" NYT 3/7/12, p. 1) I've previously posted on this Amazon e-reader product which features pieces from 10,000 to 30,000 words which can be read on the Kindle reader or its software and sell in the $.99 to $3 range. This long form, in Garner's words has "the promise of what feels almost like a new genre: long enough for genuine complexity, short enough that you don't need journalistic stretches and fillers." Amazon, in an apparent effort to do for publishing what HBO did for TV, has hired journalist David Blum to curate the offerings. These include such pieces as "Fatal Voyage" by John Hooper and "An Unexpected Twist" by Andy Borowitz.  The Singles program hosts a wide range of fiction and essays, but long-form journalism is a standout among its offerings.  Also see Scott Steinberg's piece in Rolling Stone which has similar hopes for Singles, touting that they "May Rewrite the Rules of Publishing."  By the way, as noted in my previous post, with the proper software, you can read Kindle offerings on a range of devices including old-fashioned laptops.

Surviving Dark Days

A recent David Carr column in The New York Times reveals how Esquire held onto its "narrative horsemen," and brought itself into the iPad era while not compromising its literary heritage (much).

Editor in chief David Granger kept the faith with the long form, but innovatively used the magazine's iPad app to keep the publication from being "just another magazine under glass" as Mashable—the social media news blog— put it. The result is a revived magazine with increased ad pages and page views. According to Carr "Advertiser like to see a legacy brand show muscle in a new realm."

The Values of Magazine Writing

“Magazine journalism requires space: you simply cannot build a convincing and provocative argument in 500 words,"  according to Richard Just, editor of The New Republic magazine.  The Yale Daily News reports on a recent speech by Just in which he states "We, you and I, have to make an affirmative decision that magazine journalism has to live on, even after physical magazines no longer exist." According to the article by Ariel Katz, magazine writers have a value system that prizes uncertainty in the writing and checking of the facts in a piece which makes for "a stronger argument, a truer story," very different than the "smugness and stridency" of Internet journalism. Also valued is artistry in writing and a willingness to passionately pursue arguments and ideas. Read the full account here.

Niche Necessary

Freelance writer Yael Grauer on her blog Yael Writes, reports on a panel discussion  "The Future of the Magazine" in which participants described how they believed long-form journalism will work on various platforms.
According to Grauer, Utne Reader editor David Schimke "recommended new writers brand themselves as niche market writers [and] need to be blogging, tweeting, working with authors, speaking, putting video and podcasts on their website, promoting their won work and writing SEO-optimized copy."
For a report on what Schimke and other panelists had to say, see Grauer's blog entry. Here's also a link to the event which was held in early October in Minneapolis and promises to post video.

Byliner.com

Byliner.com claims to be both a publishing company and social networking site whose focus is original narratives of some length. As well as publishing original magazine-type pieces, the site also provides links to select pieces from such magazines as Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated and Granta. A current featured article by James Wolcott describes how, armed with a recommendation from Norman Mailer, the writer attempted to join the ranks of scribes for the Village Voice while navigating the gritty New York City streets of the early '70s.

Check out the site at Byliner.com

Kindle Singles

Virginia Heffernan in her swansong for the New York Times Sunday Magazine this week touts a new home for long form journalism--Kindle Singles.  Amazon is making longer narrative nonfiction pieces available on its Kindle eReader and platform for prices ranging from free--for a few teaser pieces--to $3, with many priced at an impulse price of 99 cents. Articles include titles such as "Beware Dangerism!" by Gever Tulley which argues for not being overly-protective of your kids and "Reboot-enanny" by Rebecca Huval which describes the modern Greenwich Village folk scene. Heffernan rhapsodizes: "with Kindle Singles, Amazon has gone white knight on us. In one fell swoop, it has figured out a way to shut out virtually every entity that mediates between journalists and readers: traditional publishers, printers, warehousers, advertisers and the World Wide Web." 
But Heffernan's piece is even more interesting for the parting swipe she takes at the Web. Part of the reason she welcomes the Kindle Singles program is because its not Web based.  "I never thought I’d back off the Web," she writes, "but I have. The once-glorious freedom of the Web was not free. Its price is a bone-deep commercialism that cannot yet be circumvented. For convenience, comprehensiveness and social life, I still visit, but now I see these visits as at least as risky and irritating as they are liberating and exhilarating."
By the way, you don't have to have a Kindle to access content in Amazon's Kindle library. You can download the Kindle app for free to iPhones, PCs, Macs and even iPads.

Long Form eArticles

Long form pieces may become the content of choice for eReaders if the Atavist has its way.  This ePublisher of long-form works is positioning them for use with the Kindle, iPad and other slabs.  At 12,000 words they may be longer than typical print mag pieces, but would fit nicely the magazine requirement that they could be read in one sitting.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13ping.html
(Image: New York Times Photo Illustration)

Innovations in Magazines 2010

As you might guess from its title, the Innovations in Magazines 2010 World Report summarizes many new directions magazines took last year as they continued spreading among platforms.

The report, assembled by The Innovation International Media Consulting Group  for the Federation of the Periodical Press lists some of the following innovations:

• "Mobizines":  Magazine apps for cell phones
• Embedded video:  Insertion of an ultra-thin monitor and speaker directly into the pages of a magazine.
• Development of "interactive digital narratives...combining a fusion of text, photos, infographics, video and audio."

Fine Old Cannibal

What was the key to the 153-year-old magazine, The Atlantic, making a successful transition to a multiplatform presence? According to its president “In essence, we brainstormed the question, ‘What would we do if the goal was to aggressively cannibalize ourselves?’ ” See this New York Times piece which details how the magazine--still graced by long-form pieces--prospered by starting to think of itself as more than just a printed product.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Silo Busting

The Times reports that next year will be the first time in fifteen that the four largest magazine companies in America are scheduled to have new top execs. The event is seen by at least one industry leader as "the changing of the guard from an older school to a newer school." One of the newcomers promises bringing "ever-more complex print and digital packages to their clients," breaking down silos that may still exist between the two means of delivery.
See the complete story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/business/media/29mag.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Read Awl About It

The Awl -- an eclectic website unafraid of long-form journalism -- has a glowing writeup in the New York Times. According to media writer David Carr, "In an age of hyper-targeted vertical sites, The Awl is all over the road.  In the last week, the site published a column about foreclosures, [1,300 wds] a piece describing what it feels like to be chided by Gene Simmons [4,000 wds], an illustrated essay on the virtues of the breaststroke, tips on picking up obnoxious hipster girls [1,600 wds] and yes, poetry in the, yes, poetry section." The piece notes how the site, started by a blogger and some pals, has nearly a half-million unique visitors a month, earns about $200,000 in annual revenue and has spawned a couple of spinoff sites.
See the piece at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/business/media/25carr.html
See The Awl at: http://www.theawl.com/

New Yorker Mag Goes iPad

The venerable New Yorker magazine has joined a host of others who have created app versions of their publications for Apple's iPad tablet. Magazines such as Time, GQ, Car & Driver, Wired and many others have taken their products to this platform which offers the closest electronic equivalent of a quality paper magazine experience and is very long-form friendly. See a video at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/09/jason-schwartzman-ipad-video.html.

New Tech Pushes Long Forms

More expensive (and long) long-form journalism such as that found in magazines has had a more difficult time finding a home on the web compared to shorter News McNugget pieces.

According to "Long Form Journalism Starts a New Chapter" on the online UK Guardian, however, "With the help of [@IfYouOnly on] Twitter and sites such as Long Form and The Awl, longer articles are finding a new lease of life as people take the time to find and read them."

See also:
Longreads
Give Me Something To Read

Markets for News Features

In i-less days gone by, freelancers had a cumbersome time searching for local news outlets to place their stories. Today, digital resources can help locate local markets no matter where you live.

Google
Use a simple Google search to find local media.
[Town name] +newspapers OR news 

Community Media Sites
Community news and information sites are a comparatively new way of serving the news function in an area, often serving up hyperlocal information.
See a directory of these sites at the Knight Citizen News Network
http://www.kcnn.org/citmedia_sites/

Newslink
Lists news outlets from around the world to around
the block.
http://www.newslink.org/news.html
Note: some papers listed as "inactive" are simply
inactive links.  Try the newspaper name on Google.

Yellow Pages
Use "Yellow" services to find news outlets in
an x-mile radius from your town.
www.yellowpages.com
e.g. Toledo, OH newspaper listings:
http://www.yellowpages.com/toledo-oh/newspapers?refinements[radius]=25.0

Chamber of Commerce
Check the local Chamber site for listings of local media.  You may find the
list under "Relocation resources" or other headings.
The C of C for Toledo, Ohio, for example, has an extensive listing of local media.
http://www.toledochamber.com/cwt/external/wcpages/community/local-media.aspx

Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media
A media directory which contains thousands of listings for media organized by
geographic area.
Ask your librarian if this resource is electronically available or
see a hard copy in your library's reference section.

"Recurring Reader Affection" from Longer Pieces

Conventional wisdom is that short stuff works best on the web. Countering that notion, Slate magazine has invested in longer magazine pieces (2,000 words +) requiring that every editorial staff member at the online mag take up to six weeks from their regular job to produce one in-depth piece.  These have included Tim Noah’s analysis of why the U.S. hasn’t endured another successful terror attack since 9/11,  Julia Turner’s look at the complexities of signage, June Thomas’ examination of American dentistry, Dahlia Lithwick’s crowd-sourced foray into chick-lit authorship, and John Dickerson’s reclamation of risk-taking after the financial crash gave it a bad name. Read the Nieman Journalism Lab article on this initiative to build what the editor calls "recurring reader affection."

Feature Writing: Hot Career

A trend study from the University of California San Diego Extension lists "Feature Writing for the Web" as one of its "Hot Careers for College Grads."  According to the report "These are exciting times for news journalism reported on the Web. The technology has transformed journalism, creating new ways for how news is reported, delivered and read. The new medium also allows for much more interactivity, as readers respond via comments or blogs. Web/online journalists have the opportunity to shape the future."

Magazine For Mobile Readers

A group of former magazine journalists and editors plan to publish a weekly digital magazine titled Nomad Editions. It's scheduled to start in October 2010 and include content created specifically for mobile technology. (NYT 8/10/2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/business/media/11nomad.html

Ideas Day 1

Today class members discussed ideas derived from three main sources: observation, experience and media.
New media can be excellent sources of ideas.  For example, using Google Zeitgeist, one can find up-to-the-minute trends to write about.
It's important to remember that one never goes out to "get" ideas, but must learn to recognize and become an excellent receptor of ideas.

Some of the ideas discussed were:
• A piece about how people seem so easily angered when driving, as distinguished from how polite people are otherwise.
• A piece about the people in a political campaign and how they are passionate about their candidate.
• A piece about how some people are using work as a place to run other businesses. The example was given of an employee at a company who was selling items on eBay in his down time.
Many other interesting ideas were discusssed.
Class members were encouraged to follow their interests in developing ideas.