They’ll always be the Magazine Publishers of America to me
The Magazine Publishers of America said on Friday that it is renaming itself the MPA — The Association of Magazine Media. The notable difference is the omission of the word publishers. Why?
“MPA is underscoring the fact that magazine media content engages consumers globally across multiple platforms, including websites, tablets, smartphones, books, live events and more.”
“More” presumably means “printed magazines,” but nobody in media is all that hot on associating themselves with words like “publish” and “print” because to young people (or young “consumers” in the parlance that people use when their sole desire is to make money from you) and investors those words smell like death.
When magazine publishers like Conde Nast and newspaper publishers like Advance Publications (like Conde Nast, owned by the Newhouses) have been forced to cut hundreds if not thousands of jobs and stop publishing some of their products, it doesn’t do much good in the public relations department to accentuate the part of your business that is fading, even if it still produces 80 to 90 percent of your revenue. Fortunately, Time Inc CEO and incoming MPA Chairman Jack Griffin manages to refer in passing to “print” one time in the press release quote.
My question: Why do this so soon after magazine publishers devoted $90 million in advertising space to the MPA just this year for its “Magazines, the Power of Print” campaign? I’m lined up to talk to someone at the MPA to ask that question and will update when I hear it. The ad campaign, in the unlikely case that you missed it, tries to convince advertisers that print still is worth spending money on. It’s interesting at the very least to segue into a whole new message so soon afterward.
Also, read my friend Jack Shafer’s blistering review of the campaign at Slate, not to mention his darts tossed at a similar campaign by the Newspaper Association of America. If the words, “newspaper industry’s no-confidence vote in itself” don’t rouse the schadenfreude in your cold, cold heart, nothing will.
Perhaps this PR strategy makes sense, even if the business they engage in day after day will be just the same after the new association name debuts on Oct. 4 at the American Magazine Conference. Stick to your PR strategy long enough, we have seen over the years, and people can accept all sorts of things.
Audience and the media: a shaky marriage
How can mainstream news organizations retain (or regain) their audience’s trust in skeptical world where almost anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher? That’s the topic a panel of industry experts will address tonight at the Thomson Reuters heaquarters in Times Square. We’ll be live blogging the event here from 7pm ET.
The panel comprises: Andrew Alexander, ombudsman, The Washington Post; Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor, The Associated Press; Lisa Shepard, ombudsman, National Public Radio; and Dean Wright, global editor of ethics, innovation & news standards, Reuters. Jack Shafer, editor-at-large for Slate, is the moderator.
If you’d like to put a question to the panel, leave it in the comments box below and we’ll ask a selection on your behalf.
A media source called “Editor & Publisher” points out that all the American media fell for a politically correct lie and propagated it to the country. They reported “Second Cop — Not Kimberly Munley — Brought Down Fort Hood Killer.” It just sounded so much better to credit a woman instead of a black man for the deed. There was no checking internet sources for accuracy.
What a disgrace for homeowners around the country to find out that their lenders are foreclosing on their homes with bogus documentation.
Always request a public legal audit of everything done and contact your local Attorney General.