This week's online discussion focuses on newsletters and magazines. The textbook discusses how some don't realize the career opportunity in these publications. It's understandable. I never would have guessed there are as many as 2,000 consumer magazines in the United States or there are about 12,000 specialty magazines. But the reality is they can make gobs of cash. In many cases, this is true because these publications tend to cater to niche audiences, which advertisers covet.
So, don't be surprised that even if you end up working at a newspaper, you also spend some time helping create a specialty publication. I even spent one summer helping put together a book about the Crim 10-mile race celebrating the event's 30th anniversary. Like that one, sometimes they're part of the newspaper, and sometimes they are not. Another in-house example were working on right now - a annual community answer book that the paper publishes each April. But The Journal also has a monthly business-focused publication called "Your Magazine" that's produced by a separate staff.
So, have anyone else had experience with magazines or newsletters? What was it like? Does anyone want to work for these types of publications? Which ones do you read and why?
As an aside, the deadline for this discussion will be midnight Monday.
Our JRN 375 class on the first day
It now probably seems like a lifetime ago, but here is the class in January.
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About the instructor
- Christofer Machniak
- I currently teach journalism classes online at the University of Michigan-Flint and I work on the Digital Operations Team for MLive Media Group. Any questions or comments? Please e-mail me at cmachnia@umflint.edu.
2 comments:
Actually, it's funny that you bring that up, because at the Times Herald, we publish a lot of different magazine-style inserts in our paper each month. Just to name a few, we had Preps Plus (a high-school sports magazine that was discontinued this month), Bloom, Blue Water Shopper, Savvy (a magazine for rich old people), Bride, and I'm sure a few others I'm not thinking of.
What I've found with editing magazines are two main things: First, editing for AP style, grammar and readability are pretty much the same as editing those for a newspaper. Sometimes the stories might be a little longer and more featurey, but for the most part, the rules of journalism still apply, at least with the ones I edit. The other thing I've noticed is that with magazines, you have a lot more creative lisence design-wise. I always enjoy a change of pace when doing layout, so when you get to be a little more free-wheeling, it can be interesting.
As for magazines being niche publications, I agree with that. I used to subscribe to The Hockey News (and I might again someday when I have time to read it) and Sporting News magazine. They were tailored of course to audiences who were big sports fans. I actually was accepted for an internship at Sporting News in the summer of 2007, but finances forced them to cancel the internship program before I got there. It would have been a very interesting experience, I think. I'm not sure if I'd want to work full time for one, but I don't see a reason to dislike it compared with newspapers.
On an unrelated note, in the parent post to this one, the second paragraph has a typo where it says "So, don't t surprised..."
Hi Mike,
Thanks for catching the typo to earn a point. BTW, in your comment "creative lisense" should be "license." but I'm not counting that against you because you're submitting it as a reader and not a content provider.
- Chris
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