Rolling Stone Does Flippy Book
Vanity Fair's Continuing Comprehension Crisis
Magazines are really only my beat when they tread into pulp territory--when they ply pulp vices like the above have been known to do. Vanity Fair, despite its fashion magazine padding and New Yorker type pretensions, is really a True Crime Star Studded Scandal Tabloid. Newsweek has gone True Crime and Big Lie Newsfiction in the past. And people violating a pulp vice, such as what Rolling Stone just did, will be ticketed for 'Pulp Drift'. That said, 'Pulp Drift' tickets are sort of the norm for magazines in general. Pulp Vices are vices because they work. Everyone needs to keep the presses rolling on a slow news day. Everyone is allowed a couple of alien invasion or wild scientific speculation covers each year. It's when you start doing it for more than 1/4th of your output that we flag you as pulp--and not in a negative way. Hil-Gle is pro pulp magazine. We just like our pulps good. We're here to help. Really.
Pulp Drift is largely unintentional. Or at least it seems that way, since the modern execution of it has been that poor. Many of today's modern scandal magazines are emulations of pulp titles with formulas that worked in the past. The original purveyors of Newsstand Journalism knew exactly who they were copying and how it was to be done. For example, National Enquirer started as a bloody emulated True Crime pulp in newspaper form and then migrated up the food chain by stealing away bits of the Hollywood fan magazine and Confidential Magazine formats. Today's modern player, by contrast, seems to think he's breaking new ground and fumbles around with the rules.
This was very much the case with Newsweek. I blame the former editor. Beyond pulp vices, the editor often let the product slip out of the shop with typos and drops--sometimes even in his own lead column. He also wanted to dispose of the magazine's current audience for... what I was never sure. His stated intention was to halve the circulation and then raise the price--as if the magazine made its living off cache advertising or publisher pass through. I would say that this doesn't work for a news magazine, but that would be an indication that the genre itself is thriving. It is not. Nothing is working for it just as nothing worked for the long form general interest magazines of long ago like Liberty, Saturday Evening Post and many others. The news magazine was construed as a common carrier--of interest to all. All of the other common carrier formats have died. As for the news magazine genre, it is now a two publication field, with U.S. News & World Report having shuttered for internet only oblivion.
I should note that being a part of Kaplan, a firm which is out to make money above all else (even if it has to swindle it from the US taxpayers in the form of non discharge-able student loans) did not help Newsweek much, nor its parent the Washington Post. To be honest, the Post bought Kaplan and Kaplan is the only thing they own that doesn't lose money. If it were any other field of enterprise, you could not blame them for shifting focus. In the end it seems that the Post is money loosing hood ornament enough for Kaplan, hence the need to dispose of Newsweek. There was a time, however, when Newsweek was the thing--flagship of its own little magazine empire--and the rest of the firm the tail this dog wagged. It's not that unusual of a story, as business dealings go.
As with sports, the business dealings of media companies have a tendency to get put on display. Back room turmoil shows up in the product pretty quickly and that was the case with Newsweek. After flopping like a fish from one pulp vice to the next, it was finally sold for a dollar to a comical conglomeration of an aging tech entrepreneur and a second running news website headed by a former failure-prone celebrity editor. The makings of a disaster were there. For the next four issues post sale, the magazine went into bland mode, with graphics and stories which made it look as if it were being put out by Scholastic Books circa 1970. Then it leaked out that there was difficulty between the geezer upon whose credit this magazine was being printed and the website which actually provides its content. An editorial direction turf war broke out. My predictions for melt down had been vindicated. Good news for me and my reputation as a prediction monkey*, bad news for Newsweek.
Three issues ago Newsweek executed a perfect 180. Tina Brown's concoction appeared and the magazine was entirely reborn. I'm not ready to eat my words yet, but if there is a salvation to the news magazine as a genre, this is it. Write things people want to read about in an interesting way. Shockingly obvious formula, I know, but you would be amazed at how many editors fight it. Tina Brown has given Newsweek to this formula, heart and soul. Now she has to keep churning it out and hope that advertising rebounds or some synergy from Newsweek will drive up the Dailybeast's click throughs or all of this is going to be for nothing. Who knew the Daily Beast would look so good dressed up?
All of this is to say that the old Newsweek is gone. Frankly the line up of people who make their livings claiming to write for Newsweek but really do so appearing as a head on television had been failing to pull its weight in print for some time. George Will and the rest have other outlets, I'm sure. The new Newsweek is not jammed with departments nor trying to rebrand itself as "New Week" or whatever. It is the Daily Beast, cut and pasted, but in a happy way--taking advantage of the static composition and prestige of print. Holy crap! The fundamentals of two dimensional design! Actually used! The presentation is now at the standard of the average fashion magazine--about a 500% improvement over the typical Newsweek and clearly above average for genre and think magazines. You can read it without instructions. Moreover, the feature writing sings zings, close to sports journalism style, as if the writers were actually interested in their subject matter. Even Time can't pull that off consistently. And up until this most recent issue, it was back to being full color and had a nicer stock cover.
This issue it's back to being spot color again. (See cover above. Spot Color is a process wherein a Black and White cover is dressed up with fields or spots of solid colors, usually of the bright variety. Sometimes this is done for effect. The primary effect, I should say, is that it costs a fraction of what full color does.)
Will Newsweek make it? I have no idea. It isn't doing what Time is doing and that's a good thing. Short, topical journalism in a pithy style is the bullwork of all magazines. Putting a pant load worth of it in each issue is a great idea. Even them being on something of a budget seems like a good thing. Nifty graphics are nice, but they are sales gimmicks. The more you can do with just words, the better. I wish them luck.
Tough times, however, are not limited to the news magazine genre nor to magazines which still have competitors within their niches. Witness Rolling Stone, bible of the Rock and Roll era, spokesman for a generation and the only magazine dedicated to the fandom of the recording industry. Rolling Stone is having the same problem Breezy Stories once had: what it is covering no longer exists. Rock music is in thorough decline--has been for two decades now. This is partially because the recording industry committed suicide and has ceased to exist. Not that anyone misses the industry, but nothing has really replaced it as far as bringing new items to market is concerned. With no financial return in the business of recording music, no one is going to go into the business. You Tube and websites certainly are no replacement. The industry is now Disney, Rap and Country Culture with the other forms either slated into Light Rock or whatever still aired version of Light Rock is popular near you. Rock music? Rocks make music? Ain't heard no rock music, except on that classic station my auto mechanic listens to.
None of the big acts are Rock Music. And there are no new big acts. So what is Rolling Stone covering?
Answer: Snooki. I'll confess, before I saw the cover, Snooki could have beaten me with a hammer and I would not have known the woman's name. She appears on a reality television show, the kind I don't watch. I don't watch any television at all other than the news and (snobby sniff) the NFL. Snooki appears on MTV, makers of Madonna, which I guess is still in business. For those of you who have not watched MTV in 30 years or so, only the zit commercials remain. It no longer has any music on it. Instead the shows are about twenty-somethings sitting around being fascinated by each other. Snooki's show is more of the same, only there's supposed to be some situation imposed on the general millings about. Or the Situation is one of the characters--I forget which.
What the hell do you do with that? As a magazine? This poor Snooki woman has absolutely no talents whatsoever and knows it. (In fact her entire entourage was chosen seemingly for their intense self involvement, lack of motivation and lack of economic gifts. Like all reality show contestants, they exist for humiliation purposes. They are people the average person can confidently feel superior tgo.) Other than calling her a booze farting bimbo 15 ways, Rolling Stone does nothing with her. Sensing perhaps that she isn't good enough (a thing many of Snooki's male conquest have probably also felt) Rolling Stone felt obliged to put on a second cover, this one where the back cover should be, but upside down.
We in pulp land call it a Flippy Book, a trick first seen in coloring books but occasionally used by the likes of Marvel Comics and other entities owing their origination to Martin Goodman. Flippy Books generally have some portion of their text also running in the direction of the upside down cover, as this issue of Rolling Stone does. Nothing screams 'I am adrift without an anchor. I have no idea who my audience is' more than a Flippy Book. It also means you couldn't sell the back cover as ad space, which is very bad indeed. Flippy Book is not an excusable sin. It rates mocking only and no further review. It means you don't know who is the bigger draw, Toonerville Folks or the Great Gazoo. It means your subject matter has the same draw as Toonerville Folks or the Great Gazoo--obscure nostalgia acts or their offshoots (Bruce Springstein, Lady Gaga, Van Halen's former lead singer, Lenny Kravitz spawn Bam Bam.)
Hil-Gle's position is that no magazine should ply the Flippy Book genre. To help Rolling Stone become a better magazine, may we suggest two options going forward:
1) Pick up a copy of MOJO and do that. Mojo's big draw is that it issues a CD with every issue, full of material that is otherwise unavailable. As for the rest of the magazine, it is a pure museum peice, covering one faded genre in depth every issue. Since there is no reality of a scene for you to cover, becoming the Armchair General of the Rock and Roll era might not be a bad play. Or, conversely, you can attempt to become the recording industry yourself, issuing new material on CDs. Back this up with a website and maybe a pod cast or syndicated radio program or MTV show and maybe you will have a relevant magazine again--provided that you really are willing to cover the music young people are prone to listening to. That means new staff. Ones that don't think the Rolling Stones are still with it.
2) Go out and find what media forms young people are actually interacting with and cover that. Or you might want to cover the lifestyles of actual young people themselves--perhaps just to figure out what it is that they do and aspire to. It would be shocking new ground.
As it is, you should fold shop. At the very least, pick up Vanity Fair and look at its advertising. Each and every one of those ads should be running in your magazine. That is your demographic. Or someone's demographic. For whatever reason, people are willing to spend good money to be in that magazine. Now you figure it out and make your pitch.
Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone are very much alike, inasmuch as they both offer the big feature pieces surrounded by some fluff and color. Rolling Stone's fluff and color should be things of interest to twenty-somethings who may someday have money. (Sadly, I fear an examination of the 20ish set will reveal that they are not all that desirable as a demographic as they were in the past.) By contrast Vanity Fair's fluff and color is supposed to appeal to adults of some kind, but I am no longer sure whom. I'm thinking it gets by as an also buy for people prone to picking up fashion magazines. Ok, I'll totally look like a spaz if I just have Oprah and the Enquirer in my basket. I'll chuck in Vanity Fair, too and it will up my perceived IQ back up to average again.
For the occasional Fashion Magazine drifter in, Vanity Fair is a good deal. It too is mostly advertising and fashion. Tested sure shooting high fashion at that, if you are into that sort of thing. Buried deep in it is the occasional in depth gem of financial crisis and societal crisis reporting that will actually inform and entertain. But gosh is it a distracting dig. It works, economically. But it is one of those things wherein if all of the material wasn't stapled together in one package, you might wonder what the theme is. With the decline of Sunday Newspapers, this may actually be the direction for the general interest magazines to go in. But trust me, if it is, Vanity Fair just blundered into it. Much of the magazine you do need instructions to read.
*My reputation as a Predictions Monkey has been lately hampered by the odd trend of my being about as wrong as I can be.
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We may have short story fairly soon. Maybe another post midweek.
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