All the better to eat you with
I'm all for editorial integrity and protecting readers because lose them and we've killed the goose with the golden eggs. But, to switch fables, there's been a run on Little Red Riding Hood editors whining about protecting their virginal magazine integrity from the big bad advertising wolves. One editor with real conviction, even if possibly misguided and myopic, actually walked away from a losing battle with her publisher (does anybody really know what terribly whorish concession Kim Pittaway was asked to do before she decided her editorial chastity was preferable to her job at Chatelaine?).
The latest example of editorial's obsession with advertising encroachment is the November issue of Masthead with four separate references in the first five pages (including Bill Shields Editor's Note) plus another somewhat surprising mention in the Q&A with Rob Young of the media buying giant PHD Canada (not HYPN as reported on the cover).
The main Masthead piece on the subject of integrity was inked by (and he probably still composes in ink) Don Obe and it focuses on Maclean's running a Peter C. Newman series on the New-Canadian Establishment that was sponsored by Cadillac.
Don writes well but he's out of touch and I doubt he fully appreciates:
a. where the money comes from (hint: it's not the reader)?
and
b. why ad sales people earn so much more than editors (big hint: it's a difficult and sometimes humiliating job that few intelligent people will or can do)?
It was a very different world the last time Don actually edited a real magazine. Back then advertisers would politely call to book space at the rate card rate and ask for a right-hand page if at all possible. And there were maybe 50 magazines in the whole world. Now there are like 75 thousand in western Canada alone. This competition is making it tough for everybody and advertisers are well aware of our desperation to fill pages.
Perhaps we can keep the wolf at bay by:
a. having readers pay $50-100 for a subscription to a monthly (as if!)
b. giving up on print and move to an electronic-only model like salon.com
c. preventing the publication of new pissant magazines that feel entitled to a share of the advertising market. Make magazine publishing a closed business society like taxi cabs, street vendors and major league baseball – by license or regulated expansion only. That will prevent the next loser magazine like Zi from thinking publishing is fun and an easy way to make money while messing it up for the rest of us.
Until then, when an advertiser is willing to pony up for sponsored editorial like Cadillac did, ask yourself if the reader relationship is really being damaged. Ken Whyte did and came to the right conclusion. For years we have listened to the "brought to you by…" line on radio and television. Newspapers have ads on every editorial page including page one. So what is so precious that we are protecting in the magazine medium? Toronto Life and Canadian Geographic sell front cover sponsorships to their guides. Is the Toronto Life Restaurant Guide to be treated differently than the April Toronto Life restaurant issue? Why not cut them out of the magazine awards (oh, just noticed that three of ten NMAF board members are Toronto Life employees. How did that happen?)
P.S. According to Masthead contributor D. B. Scott (Nov 2005, page 6, column 3) – a P.S. always gets read so if you are here and didn't read the actual blog, please scroll up the page and try again. Otherwise, I think Stan Sutter (editor of Marketing magazine) got it right in his column in the November 28 issue – "Inching up to the line" which also makes reference to the Cadillac-Maclean's conspiracy. Read it here.
The latest example of editorial's obsession with advertising encroachment is the November issue of Masthead with four separate references in the first five pages (including Bill Shields Editor's Note) plus another somewhat surprising mention in the Q&A with Rob Young of the media buying giant PHD Canada (not HYPN as reported on the cover).
The main Masthead piece on the subject of integrity was inked by (and he probably still composes in ink) Don Obe and it focuses on Maclean's running a Peter C. Newman series on the New-Canadian Establishment that was sponsored by Cadillac.Don writes well but he's out of touch and I doubt he fully appreciates:
a. where the money comes from (hint: it's not the reader)?and
b. why ad sales people earn so much more than editors (big hint: it's a difficult and sometimes humiliating job that few intelligent people will or can do)?
It was a very different world the last time Don actually edited a real magazine. Back then advertisers would politely call to book space at the rate card rate and ask for a right-hand page if at all possible. And there were maybe 50 magazines in the whole world. Now there are like 75 thousand in western Canada alone. This competition is making it tough for everybody and advertisers are well aware of our desperation to fill pages.
Perhaps we can keep the wolf at bay by:
a. having readers pay $50-100 for a subscription to a monthly (as if!)
b. giving up on print and move to an electronic-only model like salon.com
c. preventing the publication of new pissant magazines that feel entitled to a share of the advertising market. Make magazine publishing a closed business society like taxi cabs, street vendors and major league baseball – by license or regulated expansion only. That will prevent the next loser magazine like Zi from thinking publishing is fun and an easy way to make money while messing it up for the rest of us.Until then, when an advertiser is willing to pony up for sponsored editorial like Cadillac did, ask yourself if the reader relationship is really being damaged. Ken Whyte did and came to the right conclusion. For years we have listened to the "brought to you by…" line on radio and television. Newspapers have ads on every editorial page including page one. So what is so precious that we are protecting in the magazine medium? Toronto Life and Canadian Geographic sell front cover sponsorships to their guides. Is the Toronto Life Restaurant Guide to be treated differently than the April Toronto Life restaurant issue? Why not cut them out of the magazine awards (oh, just noticed that three of ten NMAF board members are Toronto Life employees. How did that happen?)
P.S. According to Masthead contributor D. B. Scott (Nov 2005, page 6, column 3) – a P.S. always gets read so if you are here and didn't read the actual blog, please scroll up the page and try again. Otherwise, I think Stan Sutter (editor of Marketing magazine) got it right in his column in the November 28 issue – "Inching up to the line" which also makes reference to the Cadillac-Maclean's conspiracy. Read it here.
posted by Reptile at 12:28 PM
3 Comments:
Just a clarification in the interests of accuracy (and it's something I've stated in each media interview I've done): I did not leave Chatelaine as a result of an ad/edit confrontation with my publisher. The precipitating event was directly editorially related, and boiled down to a disagreement with the publisher over our respective roles and authority. Was I concerned about some of the ad compromises Chatelaine was making (discussions and decisions about which I was involved in)? Yes. And given that I'm no longer required to defend a corporate position, that gives me the freedom to discuss those concerns in a way that other (employed!) editors are unable to. On the myopic front: yup, have been since age 9. But thanks to corrective eyewear, I'd argue I see pretty clearly...
Hey Kim:
Thanks for chiming in. How did you find this little blog of mine anyways - Google yourself?
So then, exactly what non-advertising thingee was Kerry Mitchell trying to get you to do with your editorial? And did she end up doing it after you left? And isn't the publisher the boss even if part of the job is to shelter the editor who is busy protecting the reader from the unholy advertiser who provides the money to pay the editor to protect the reader...)?
And when did it start going bad? There was a time when you proudly said of your life at Chatelaine:
"I never would have imagined, in a million years, that I would end up where I am. I’m having so much fun doing what I’m doing."
Your friend and mine,
Reptile
P.S. Why is it that editors are always the good guys?
Sorry, Kim, but the rain has gone and we still can't see clearly. Where did the publisher overstep her bounds, as defined by you... cover design? Editorial direction? The superfluous "u" in "labour"? Enquiring minds want to know!
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