Edit Discover

So, I still think it was a good idea to bring the editorial staff of Discover magazine to suburban Milwaukee from New York, as owner Kalmbach Publishing has done.

But everyone doesn't appear to think so; I just received an electronic job alert: Discover magazine is searching for a new editor-in-chief. Hmmm....

Kalmbach Lets Employees Discover Wisconsin

Kalmbach, the suburban Milwaukee-based publisher that purchased science magazine Discover two years ago, is reportedly closing Discover's New York office and shifting the editorial staff to its Midwest base, according to Folio:.

Just wanted to say, I told you so. Kalmbach was a good company to buy Discover, and now it's making a good decision regarding location. The only points-off moment was when the company's president used the word "synergy" to explain the move.

Discover Magazine Purchased by Kalmbach Publishing

Kalmbach Publishing, located in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has bought Discover Media, which produces Discover magazine. Discover will become Kalmbach's 17th periodical.

Kalmbach is a respected publisher of "enthusiast" magazines such as Astronomy. It's a great fit; Kalmbach's a good publisher and they should take good care of the magazine, its 700,000+ readers, and the brand. They're not a buy-and-sell type of company.

Discover will remain headquartered in New York, reports Folio:, which will make the staff that works there happier, no doubt, but it'll be a waste of money. Perhaps the location will shift in future years, but for now it probably helps the company retain staff. (Publishers often say they need to be in Manhattan to get visibility among large advertisers and to get media "buzz," but there are plenty of successful publications produced outside of the Big Apple, so we can dispense with those rationalizations for paying sky-high rents.)

Discover was founded in 1980 by Time Inc., and it was then in the vanguard of a new movement of science writing for popular audiences. The articles were written by scientifically literate professional journalists who were able to bring science to mass, non-expert audiences. The magazine has been owned by quite a few companies in the meantime, including the Walt Disney Company and a company that included magazine entrepreneur Bob Guccione Jr (who later flirted with the idea of resurrecting his father's popular science/futurist magazine Omni, but I haven't seen anything on that possibility for years now, so I assume it's not going to happen).

So at least one happy ending in the magazine marketplace these days.

Now It's Discover Magazine That's for Sale

This week, first Newsweek was put up for sale by its owner, the Washington Post Co. Today comes word from Folio: that 700-000-circ science magazine Discover is looking for a buyer. I think this is our chance.

Newsweek is said to be bleeding tens of millions of dollars a year, but Folio: says Discover is reportedly cash-flow positive. So I'm in!

I've got $37 in my wallet, and can probably squeeze a bit more off my credit cards. Come on, pitch in! This is Discover we're talking about. Originally a Time-Life magazine, Discover helped launch a great new era of popular science journalism, and it's done some great work over the decades.

Did I mention it's cash-flow positive??

Dollar Store Magazines

With the purchase of TV Guide for $1 by OpenGate and the talk about McGraw Hill selling BusinessWeek for $1, one naturally asks: What other media company would I pay $1 to buy?

Chicago Tribune: It shrinks and shrinks, and the city of Chicago's once-great panoply of news options shrinks, too.

Starlog: It shrunk and shrunk, and now is no more, at least in print. I might even double the price for this one.

Playboy: Domestically in print, it's severely challenged; online and internationally, it's doing great. Too bad what I care about most is the print.

Esquire: Its leaders seem bored by the very idea of putting out a magazine, but it remains one of the great brands in men's publishing.

Boston Globe: Well, it is for sale. But then, I'd probably have to pretend to be a Red Sox fan, so $1 is way too much.

Discover: We have got to change the design of this magazine. Generally good content is lost in a world of san-serif madness.

InStyle: Okay, I admit, I'd only buy this one so I could close it down. Pure snobbery on my part, but I apologize not.

The Latest Shopping Spree, Part II

My latest trip to the bookstore, just a couple hours ago this afternoon, ended with me walking out with two magazines:

Monocle (June 2009): Another giant issue (more than 200 pages, I think, counting the inserts) from Financial Times columnist Tyler Brûlé. We get the only magazine that includes Lebanon's elections, Sarkozy, manga, an aviation survey, a look at Mongolia's capital, Obama's White House designing, and a report on the Karachi, Pakistan, police forces. I have no idea if this magazine is a resounding financial success, but I hope it is. It is a big part of my evolving view that these globally-fucused, hefty hefts are the successful magazines of the future, like my new best friend forever, Winq. I'll write more on this theory in the future.

Smithsonian (June 2009): What made me pick up this issue? I've always been impressed by this fine magazine, and I buy several issues of it every year. My mother used to bring home stacks of them from the publishing company where she worked. But my partner's a Frank Lloyd Wright fan, and they've got an article on Wright, so ... magazine purchased.

And then there are the magazines I almost bought, even carrying them with me until I decided for certain that I didn't want to spend money on them:

Deathray (June/July 2009): In my continuing effort to find a science fiction media magazine to replace the hole in my heart left by the print cessation (er, hiatus) of Starlog, I have been trying to choose between SFX, Deathray, and SciFi Now. Problem is, all three oversized British mags are so bleeping similar that one is left walking away from all of them. I had a Deathray in my hands, but before I went to the checkout counter, I realized I hadn't read the April/May issue (had barely opened it), so why spring for an entirely new issue?

Discover (July/August 2009): A decade or two ago, my sister gave me a copy of an annual Best Science Writing of the Year anthology, and I loved it. I learned in the books' introduction that Discover magazine was one of the founders of a new type of popular science writing -- intelligent, accessible to the non-expert, and high-quality. I've read it off and on over the years, even subscribing once or twice. But I have to admit I hate-hate-hated the redesign instituted a few years ago when Bob Guccione Jr. took over the mag (and that's not a knock on Guccione; I see him as someone who's done a hell of a lot of things I wish I'd had the money to do in the magazine industry; I have a premiere issue of Spin magazine just a foot away from my keyboard as I write this, as a matter of fact, and I thought it was great when I heard a rumor that he was interested in reviving Omni as a quarterly, because it fed my own interest in restarting a late science/SF magazine). Anyway, this magazine just didn't make the final should-I-or-shouldn't-I decision as I was toting up the damage from my magazine grazing (particularly in light of my subscription to the weekly New Scientist), so back to the newsstand it went.

Maybe I should write one of these posts on the mags I'm buying used on eBay???

My previous shopping spree