Where Did Time Go?
I don't buy many magazine anymore. There is seldom anything in them I find compelling enough to buy and keep around. They end up in piles of clutter eventually being tossed into the recycle bin. I don't object to magazines though when I see people buying fifty dollars worth of gossip rags it makes me do an internal eye-roll. But I do like to read good writing, well thought out pieces that inform or challenge.
So when I noticed a cover story regarding secret militias in a recent Time magazine I picked it up. It sure seemed thin. I glanced at the last numbered page, did a quick count of the number of pages devoted to advertising. After doing the math I realized that I would be buying a magazine with approximately fifty-six pages of content - not allowing even for white space. That ain't much magazine for six bucks.
Same with Newsweek. I used to buy these magazines alternately on a semi-regular basis so I was a bit confusticated to find that the current editions had shrunk so. I suppose one could argue that, take out the advertising pages from a lot of magazines - especially so-called fashion or style magazines - and there is less than that, and what content there is would hardly be considered "writing" in the classic journalistic sense. In fact, most of those types of magazines seem little more than delivery systems for high-key advertising. There's a comic irony in that but I'm digressing.
I wonder how much longer good, general interest current events publications will even be around in print form. I'm skeptical of much of on-line content, wiki this and wiki that. I saw a witty segment that Stephen Colbert did on this, "Wikiality" I think it was called.
At least I have yesterday's New York Times. Coffee, a newspaper, the porch, October sky.
So when I noticed a cover story regarding secret militias in a recent Time magazine I picked it up. It sure seemed thin. I glanced at the last numbered page, did a quick count of the number of pages devoted to advertising. After doing the math I realized that I would be buying a magazine with approximately fifty-six pages of content - not allowing even for white space. That ain't much magazine for six bucks.
Same with Newsweek. I used to buy these magazines alternately on a semi-regular basis so I was a bit confusticated to find that the current editions had shrunk so. I suppose one could argue that, take out the advertising pages from a lot of magazines - especially so-called fashion or style magazines - and there is less than that, and what content there is would hardly be considered "writing" in the classic journalistic sense. In fact, most of those types of magazines seem little more than delivery systems for high-key advertising. There's a comic irony in that but I'm digressing.
I wonder how much longer good, general interest current events publications will even be around in print form. I'm skeptical of much of on-line content, wiki this and wiki that. I saw a witty segment that Stephen Colbert did on this, "Wikiality" I think it was called.
At least I have yesterday's New York Times. Coffee, a newspaper, the porch, October sky.