Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Magazine News: Update Roundup

A roundup of notes and some updates on previous posts here:

Old New Republic: If they can bring back George Clooney to ER, then why can't Martin Peretz buy back his magazine? Yep, Marty Peretz has bought back control of his baby, The New Republic magazine. As previously reported here (and here), Peretz used to own the li'l political magazine before selling it (in phases) to Canadian firm Canwest Global Communications.

In or out, in or out: Folio: reports that Penton is in the midst of layoffs and changing some print mags to online-only. But it is finding resources to launch one new print magazine, Chief Marketer.


Daily dilemma: The San Francisco Chronicle might not be killed off or sold after all. But I suspect I'm correct, as I wrote here earlier, that it'll be too weak to be a great newspaper, after it cuts hours, wages, and staff.

Last man standing: Magazine distributor Source Interlink continues to mop up its legal mess with competitors and competition, again according to Folio:. Background on this ridiculous battle here and here, and info on why traditional print distributors are whistling in the dark here.

We spit in the general direction of so-called bankruptcy: Mastehead Online reports that Reader's Digest Association President/CEO Mary Berner says phooey to speculation that the company was planning a bankruptcy, just because it had hired a law firm that is known for its work on bankruptcy cases. Still, it can't be good.


Logo tastes: In my notice about the new web site by science fiction media magazine Starlog, I asked whether the site's use of the magazine's old logo instead of the new one unveiled a few months ago was a mistake, just a placeholder, or a sign that they were abandoning the new logo. My source tells me it was none of the above. Just the preference of the web page creator.

And that's all the news that is, um, news of updated news. I'll have to work on a new closing line...

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