Excellent Media Experiences* Part II

* Before the Internet!

Nov 8, 2021

Happy November Challenge, in which I resolve to write something daily all month long. Today it’s the second installment of Excellent Media Experiences— Magazines.

Here’s Part I — Buying an Album.

Note: The journey back to these lost-era bits of nostalgia is not to declare all advances in media technology “bad” and all old-school components “good.” The intent is to home in on the core ingredients, the enablers of Excellent Experiences before the Internet, to maybe raise appreciation of both worlds.

Is physical media dead?

Apps and connected devices have certainly swept physical media aside.

We’ve all seen photos like this one:

In the ancient world of 2007, publishers and studios still packaged their information in physical books, CDs, albums and DVDs they shipped to retailers. Today you and I gain the convenience of instantly acquiring those experiences without the package.

Everything became an app. With digitization we enjoy real advantages: We can now stream movies at home and instantly acquire new music.

But convenience comes at a cost. The “24-hour news cycle” of cable TV has morphed into an endless torrent of social media posts, opinion-driven and often loaded with inaccuracies. Unlike the edited pages of Time or Newsweek, today’s digital content lacks the level of gatekeeping that helped ensure accuracy and depth.

The video store, the newsstand, catalogs and the beloved magazine, arriving in your mailbox a full day before it hits newsstands, have all faded into memory. When was the last time you bought a magazine?

Fragmentation across countless channels means more choice but less of a shared experience. Mobile devices are intimate wonders of innovation, yet I miss the old-school appeal of albums, pagers, and fountain pens, even as I embrace the speed and quality of new tech.

Regardless of whether we see smartphones and broadband media as good or bad, they’re here to stay. Print magazines will likely become a premium product for those willing to pay, with small print runs. But display-ad revenue, dropping since the 1980s, will never recover. We may see a revival of ‘print editions,’ as special content treats, but that’s about all.

Weekly publications: Time, Newsweek, TV Guide (maybe bi-weekly), Sporting News, etc.

Value/Relevance in Present: A timely reminder of the strengths of the “24-hour news cycle,” of the cable news era and the “never-ending” cycle of the subsequent social media/smart phone era. And a warning sign of the glaring inaccuracies and truly deep flaws we’re seeing with each. 

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, magazines were part of the week’s rhythm. Your parents subscribed to several; you’d see others at newsstands or in waiting areas at the doctor’s or dentist’s. The barber shop always stocked sports titles, and for slightly older patrons, Playboy.

You’d know exactly which day magazines arrived in the mail, and you’d be cranky if a postal delay meant waiting an extra day. Carving time to skim magazines mirrored today’s digital news “loop.”

Post-event analysis was magazines’ key strength. In 1980, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated provided essential reading to understand John Lennon’s murder or grasp the background significance of the US Hockey Olympians’ defeat of the Soviets. These weeklies, vetted by editors, offered context and depth that daily newspapers couldn’t match. At the moment of their arrival, they were 100% current — a weekly snapshot of thoroughly reported news.

What it imparted (benefits, lessons, etc.): Anticipation and deeper appreciation of content, plus blessed respite from information overload once finished reading. The newsweekly format’s brevity often left you wanting more, building excitement for the next issue—unlike today’s instant content deluge. Those editors sharpened both writing and thinking with a rigor missing from social media’s unfiltered noise.

Downsides: The downside was brevity, but their measured capsules feel like a luxury now.

Deeper profile/reflection:  It was our only option. 

You could read the big story in the next day’s paper, followed by columnists’ takes in subsequent days. What you couldn’t do was binge-consume photos, videos, or instant reporting moments after an event. The best you could get was “breaking news” on cable or network TV for major stories. No real-time social reactions — sometimes useful, but often inaccurate, incomplete or misleading.*

Content back then often felt like an eagerly anticipated treat. These days, I occasionally grab a magazine at the airport — that’s my entire magazine consumption.

One of my mowing gigs growing up was the Wade grandparents’ yard. Grandmama Virginia Wade was a “subscription specials” junkie who took many titles. On many lawn-care occasions, she sent me home with a six-inch stack of copies of Newsweek, Time, US News, People, LIFE, Sport and Sports Illustrated, plus assorted titles for Mom and my sister like Redbook.

One humid Saturday afternoon when I was 15 and mowing their Greenfield Road lawn, the current Rolling Stone waited for me on the kitchen table at mowing ‘halftime’ (along with a large ice water). Awesome: Grandmama Virginia had added RS to the list. She later added Esquire and Warhol’s titanic-scale Interview.

The tactile appeal runs deep. Few things compare to cracking open a well-made hardback for the first time. Dona Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) hardcover edition comes to mind; it was slightly taller and more narrow than the typical hardback and used a font, Cloister, that was likely custom-made. Cheesy fun from around the same time, Griffin and Sabine was an interactive, coffee-table-sized “scrapbook” fiction with postcards and letters readers could handle and remove.

The same tactile truths apply to a pristine Chicago Tribune sports section or a Sunday New York Times no one else has read. I still get a small thrill from the odd vacation purchase, but it’s “chasing.” A 2023 University College London study found that physical books and magazines enhance retention and emotional connection, confirming what bibliophiles already know: touch matters.

The trade-off is clear: digital media offers unmatched access, but physical media delivers potential depth and the ability to share story assets. 

What are the 2021 equivalents to this? What content “rushes” do you clear space happily for in the new world?

My list would include a good Netflix or Prime series binge (Check out Bloodline); a really well made, deep-dive Spotify playlist I’ve found through trial/error (Try the 18-hour long, “105.9 WCKG Chicago Classic Rock”); a nostalgic YouTube dive to find old Letterman episodes (Someone called Don Giller there is singlehandedly curating Dave items, including all the Flunky The Clown appearances).

My current book-consumption pattern is: 1) Audible.com 2) Buy the physical book. Buying the Kindle book is currently a distant third, I haven’t read anything there in months. iPads are too bulky for this IMO. Don’t own a Kindle device.

And on the magazine front, I really should look into subscribing to something again. Just not quite sure, what.

In fact, writing this I realize how much I do miss books and magazines and I’ll make an effort to return to both in 2022.

* – An editorial layer then existed to shape and finalize reporting that was submitted at deadline. Writers and readers of certain age or experience likely agree (resoundingly) this is sorely missed in the current climate and is a major problem likely to continue.