Petard, Hoist!

This item from the BBC News, ironically in its arts and entertainment section, notes something interesting about the dying magazine industry: Some of it seems not to be dying.

Writer Stephen McIntosh looked at a recent magazine and circulation report in England and found that news and news/opinion magazines like The Economist and The Spectator showed sales increases. Other similar publications also had some bumps, even factoring in things like paywalls for some online articles and other web-based content.

The people McIntosh talked to suggest that the rise of quickly-disseminated general news -- sometimes too quickly, in a fashion that has to be walked back or which proves later to be inaccurate -- means that people also want to have some analysis and context to help understand the blizzard of data thrown their way. Publications that can produce that get readers, and if they can make their content good enough, then they can get readers who will pay for it.

Celebrity, gossip and fashion mags, though, are still seeing sales slumps. I've got no opinion on the value of fashion magazines, but there seems little downside in the reduction of celebrity and gossip outlets. The slump's probably only worth one or two cheers, though, rather than three, since the content moves out of the checkout line and onto everyone's phones.

The one or two cheers comes because these particular organs have long been invested in things that turn out to be ephemeral or are of interest only because the people doing them have been in movies or television. A guy starts an affair at work and winds up leaving his wife for the other woman, but a few years later it turns out he's not that great a catch for her either. It happens all the time and if everyone involved lives in a trailer no one but those affected care much about it. But if those involved are named Jennifer, Brad and Angelina, well, then stop the press! We now even have celebrities who are famous for no reason whatsoever, who all seem to be named Kardashian or Jenner.

Having nailed their colors to the mast of ephemera, these folks now find themselves adrift because the ephemera has found a medium much better suited to it: The here-today-gone-in-20-minutes world of online celebrity gossip.

McIntosh notes that Vogue magazine recently did a large photo spread and interview with Jennifer Lawrence, a very good young actress who has been interesting before and may be again. But since all of the content went up online before the issue hit the stands or subscribers' hands, they took away any reason to actually buy the magazine. They're caught between offering enough online content to create buzz but keeping the free stuff at a low enough level that there's still a reason to pay for the rest. It's hard, though to feel sorry for publications that have trafficked in the least appealing aspects of the lives of people who just want to act, or sing, or live out their muse in some other way.

Whether the bump in news magazine sales is an actual long-term upward trend or just a bump has yet to be seen. But if the slide in the others' sales is a trend as well, then we can only hope the celebrity and gossip website will follow its path someday.