Lately it’s been seeming like every other day a magazine goes under. Or goes to internet-only. Which, since I prefer to read hard copy and have never once clicked on an on-line ad, feels like essentially the same thing.
In mid October 2012 it was Newsweek, which announced that after 80 years in print it would be converting to a digital-only platform in 2013.
Before that Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, which was started in 1999 by two new moms and over the years has become known as the New Yorker for parents, announced the August issue would be its last.
I wrote a long feature for them on synthetic estrogen years ago, “Hormonally Charged.” I have a lifetime subscription gifted to me by a client, and was so saddened to see Brain, Child go.
In swooped Marcelle Soviero, a writer and a mother of five. Wielding a mighty pen (keyboard?), Marcelle bought the magazine and has just put out the first issue of the new Brain, Child. [Trumpets sound.]
Not only does Marcelle wear the coolest glasses ever, she is also a writer whose prose is so raw and real and honest that it will break your heart in five different places. I had the privilege of contributing an opinion piece to this first issue of the new iteration of the magazine.
I used to be a contributing editor at Mothering. I miss that magazine (and the amazing writers, editors, and fact checkers who were my colleagues) every day. Being on-line just isn’t the same.
Do you read magazines on-line? Do you pay for the privilege? Is the print magazine industry soon to become completely obsolete or is the reemergence of Brain, Child a sign that print is still alive?
Alisa Bowman says
Congrats! Can’t wait to read it. All of your writing is thought provoking and life changing.
Kerry Dexter says
I’m glad to see people taking the leap of faith on print publications . I think print will be around for a long time, and happy to see you writing for print too, Jennifer!
Natalie B. says
I do NOT read magazines online. (I don’t do much of anything online, which is odd, because I’m online daily. Can’t quite figure that one out.) After having bought every issue of Mothering from the grocery store for about two years, I signed up for a subscription a week or so before they went all digital. The price difference between the digital subscription and the print was significant, so I went with the digital. I have never read a single issue of Mothering/Natural Life? (the replacement) since subscribing. I can’t read that online. I don’t have a tablet. I would pay for something I felt was worth reading. In fact, I wish more outlets would charge for their content, as I, a) hate being marketed to online, and b) worry about good writing, research and reporting devolving into infotainment. I’ve been very disappointed with Mothering’s switch to all digital. It’s taken them a very long time to get their ads straight (Does a world’s-largest-cola-company ad featuring a dad and son playing video games on “family game night” seem like a good fit with Mothering?), and there’s almost no actual new content (save your flu shot article). They just recycle the same online articles they’ve had for years. Is that what the digital future holds? Sorry to rant, but I’m a bit dubious about the future everyone keeps telling me I will live exclusively online.
I’ll be sure to pick up a copy of Brain, Child, however.
Jennifer Margulis says
I’m glad for this rant, Natalie. It makes me feel like I’m not the only one.
There’s something so wonderful about sitting down with a cup of coffee or tea, magazine in hand, and reading (It’s raining here in Ashland)–all the while being interrupted three hundred times by children.
It’s just not the same to read on-line. With a print magazine you can choose to look at or ignore the ads. On-line they pop out at you, block the words, and are generally that much more obnoxious. I also hate being marketed to on-line.
And I’ve been so disappointed with the direction Mothering has taken, not just the fact that it is digital but the fact that they continue to advertise companies that do not dovetail with the magazine’s values. I’ve been told they are sorting that out but when I see sugar-laden vitamin ads or mainstream cereal ads (where the cereal is less nutritious than the cardboard box it’s in), I feel despair. I understand that these are hard economic times but it doesn’t seem right.
When a fast food ad popped up on my on-line column back when I was still a contributing editor, I complained right away. Not long after the magazine stopped printing and the business was sold.
But American readers can do something more than just adapt to digital. We can PAY for magazine subscriptions and show with our purchases that print is not dead.
Natalie B. says
The online marketing gives me the creeps, because the internet stalks you. My four year old said she wanted a nightlight for every holiday, and my husband and I did some ebay investigations (lost our bid – someone else really wants those?) Since then, nightlight ads appear in my browser all the time. I once looked up Bonobos for my girls and a clothing company with that name came up in my search results. Curious as to what kind of clothing that might be, I clicked, and was bombarded with ads for that company for MONTHS afterward. Print ads can’t do that. I feel like I don’t want to follow any links online because I’m feeding some kind of mega-marketing-database, and helping them to sell crap and scam people. It’s one reason I don’t have a Facebook page.
Side note: Oh the vitamins! Someone donated a box to my girls’ daycare, and my husband took TWO bottles, one for each. They are capable of having massive meltdowns when they ask for a vitamin and are denied because they’ve already had the day’s dose. I don’t ever want them in the house again.
Myra lou says
I used to love getting Mothering in my mailbox. I started to resent all the ads, but loved the content. I never read it online now.
There was something about getting a new issue, as a new mom with my first baby, that helped me feel less alone back then.
I am glad to see Brain Child is back and in non-online form.