Five Reasons Why Women's Magazine Sales Are Plummeting

While not on my daily reading list, Jezebel is always acute with their criticism of the women's and fashion magazine industry. Today, senior editor Dodai Stewart summed the whole thing up with a list of why circulation is down, down, down:

1. The covers suck.
If you love fashion, why would you pick up a magazine that had a Photoshopped roboGwyneth on it? Or an animalistic-looking basketball player? Or Sarah Jessica Parker wedged between a decapitated man's legs? French Vogue's covers are daring and provocative; American Vogue relies on Kate Bosworth's "superstar style." YAWN.

2. Photoshop is out of hand.
Art directors rendered Drew Barrymore and Tina Fey almost unrecognizable. ScarJo's waist was whittled. Not even "healthy" magazines like Self and Fitness are immune. Maybe readers are sick of the artifice?

3. Expensive Shit.
Even if you adore the fall collections and think of Galliano as God, you probably can't afford a $13,000 dress. So when you have to look at said $13,000 dress posed in the middle of a desert like it ain't no thing, you can get miffed. No? How about a $270 Bible? Or a $246 Louis Vuitton headband?

4. "News" you can't use.
Once you get past the cover and expensive shit, some mags are filled with mind-numbing, trite or just plain evil content. The illustrated "How To Take A Shower" piece in Allure comes to mind. As does the quote from Vera Wang in Vogue: "The armpit is nasty, nasty. Even young girls can have this problem."

5. The Internet.
When in doubt, blame this Web 2.0 thing everyone's talking about!

I agree on all counts, in varying degrees. While many of these are exactly the reasons people DO read these magazines -- after all, readers aren't stupid -- I think the lack of inventiveness on the whole is really starting to bring them down.

Just the other day I was remarking to someone how good Harper's Bazaar looked compared to Vogue, while musing that Harper's has always had trouble keeping up with Vogue in ad pages. Vogue has been so...stale lately (the Kate Moss scoop on Page Six Magazine as an exception), visually as well as textually. Same goes for many of the others.

They just look...tired. Uninspired. And many of them read that way, too.

In fact, the most surprising thing I've seen lately is the reinvented O, The Oprah Magazine covers...all the white space is shocking when compared to the coverline-heavy, big image, poorly photographed (Annie Liebovitz and Mario Testino or not), manufactured covers that surround it on the newsstand.

It's like staring at a production line.

Which is the point, right? Newsstand attraction and sales? After all, none of these magazines (maybe Harper's) really rely on subscriptions the way, say, The New Yorker does. They're mostly "on a whim" purchases.

One more point: the value of Dodai's Jezebel list is in fact the comments that follow it. Sometimes Jezebel comments get overly sarcastic, but I think there's a lot of value in what's being said below. For example:

I would say prices. The cheapest magazine I could find was $3.50. I do feel bad for the women journalists that work for them. I would hate to see people laid off because of this. I think people ignore that some women magazines do have good articles in them about some amazing women. -tranquilmademoiselle

Indeed.

In a Dying Industry, Alt-Weeklies Have More Crises of Faith

It seems New York's two major alternative weeklies, the Village Voice and New York Press, continue to appear to have ethical lapses, despite new editors at each.

Just today, Jezebel published a post comparing the New York Press' brand-new sex-advice column to a previously published column by nationally syndicated sex-advice guru Dan Savage (who, ironically, appears in the pages of the Voice). According to them, it smells a little fishy:


Claudia Lonow's column in NYP:

Yo, Lonow:
My girlfriend and I have been living together for two years, and we're beginning to talk about marriage and kids. I love her, but I'm beginning to be weirded out by her relationship with her brother. They're always touching in each other. (continues here....)

Dan Savage's 2006 column:

Here's one for you: My girlfriend and I have been living together for two years, and we've talked about marriage and kids. Like all relationships, ours wasn't perfect. But what really bothered me was my girlfriend's relationship with her brother. They were touchy-feely in a way that felt inappropriate. (continues here...)

If you keep reading, it gets a little too similar to rule out plagiarism for my taste.

On the other hand, the Voice had its own problems a few weeks ago, when its new art critic had some unethical (or at the least, unprofessional) connections to the very subject he was critiquing:

"It has been brought to our attention that Christian has been named managing director of two upcoming commercial art fairs, one in New York (Volta) and one in Chicago (Next). Christian assures us that the consulting work he is doing for those fairs does not conflict with anything he has written for us or would write in the future, and he has demonstrated to us that besides being an excellent and highly readable critic, he’s also a man of integrity. But we’re concerned that his work outside the Voice at least creates an appearance of conflict...he will cease writing for us."

Hmm. If alt-weeklies think they face problems from mergers on high, they should probably look on down to their own newsrooms first. Bottom line? It's not looking good for these two. Next time either post a job requirements list, "ethics" should probably be at the top.

Why 'Gawker Media' Could Become True Journalism -- And How Nick Denton Is The Next William Randolph Hearst

Gawker recently announced the launch of its 14th blog, Jezebel, which will have a focus on "women, women's media and fashion." Its managing editor will be a Star/In Style vet, its editor will be a WSJ vet and its associate editor will hail from the offices of Elle.

But that's not the news. The real story happened on the same day, and stems from Gawker Media managing editor Lockhart Steele's words upon his departure from his own position, who mentioned that the new media institution is moving away from aggregating web stories and toward breaking original stories.

Wait....huh? Gawker breaking original news? What's next, a Gawker Wire Service for syndication nationwide (or, at least, in blue states)?

I don't know if the name "Gawker" and the phrase "breaking original stories" contrast for you like they do for me, but it's worth noting that behind its expansion, Gawker Media is slowly turning into the rogue, "gay," "virgin," "eunuch" of the MSM crowd (in their own words) rather than the blog crowd. What I mean to say is, Gawker Media is slowly changing its stance from MSM "opposition" to "alternative."

Gawker has always played off the audiences of MSM. For example, the flagship blog and its West Coast sister Defamer cover the Page Six/Us Weekly/In Touch/People beat; Wonkette covers The Politico beat; Gizmodo covers the Popular Mechanics beat; Valleywag covers the Wired beat; Jalopnik covers the Motor Trend beat; Consumerist covers the Consumer Reports beat; and so on. Its new blog does the same -- only this time, it's stealing directly from women's magazines, one of the biggest audiences in the media world.

Gawker Media style has always been 50 percent wrath and 50 percent news aggregation. And while they've done a great job diversifying their portfolio (and I'm calling a men's interest blog or a business-oriented blog as the next one out the door, you heard it here first), the real news is that Gawker is moving away from that 50 percent news aggregation.

What that means is, in effect, that Gawker Media is getting closer and closer to being the journalism outlet it so vehemently denies being. And that in and of itself is fascinating. Will Gawker start paying more to its editors for original content (any Gawker editor reading this is probably thinking, "Not on your life if Denton's still in charge")? Will there be less stress on posting 20 posts a day and more stress on posting original content? Will there be Gawker people out in the field -- dare I say GM reporters?

I'm getting ahead of myself, of course. But you get the idea. Gawker Media readers already depend on the company for its signature vitriol. Will it depend on it for content, too?

Furthermore, Gawker Media sites would become more like MSM -- original content and aggregated content when needed (like the AP, but without paying for it). But this is a whole new brand of journalism, effectively digital yellow journalism: Original opinion mixed with original stories.

On this kind of path, Nick Denton would be the next William Randolph Hearst, the next Joseph Pulitzer, the next Rupert Murdoch -- a man with an army of niche publications tweaked for the popular masses.

I don't expect the shift to happen quickly. Gawker Media still has a lot on its plate. But if that's the direction the company's headed -- original content -- its editors' cries of "not journalists!" may soon ring hollow.