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Nice that we can still rely on Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and (sometimes) the Atlantic for journalism this thorough. Greece seems insane, of course - but ther

Nice that we can still rely on Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and (sometimes) the Atlantic for journalism this thorough. Greece seems insane, of course - but there's always Italy.

mikebike 16y ago
Why the qualifier for the Atlantic? I find it tends to have more journalism than VF and New Yorker, which have more cultural content. In particular, the New Yorker will typically have one good piece of journalism per issue, where the Atlantic will have multiple.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Good point, I'm not sure what I was thinking. The Atlantic is generally excellent, too, I guess I'm just not as familiar with them.
jseliger 16y ago
The question is: do you convert that sentiment to subscribing? I ask because the only way good journalism venues can survive in the short to medium term is through print subscriptions, which subsidize their websites. (For those of you about to level the charge of hypocrisy: I get the New Yorker and the Atlantic. Reading the latter starting when I was a college freshmen has probably taught nearly as much as all my non-technical classes combined.)
- natrius 16y ago
  It's a nice sentiment, but expecting people to subscribe to your print magazine because they like reading your articles online is a recipe for a broken business model. People like good journalism and they're willing to support it, but such support needs to be requested in a logical manner. When non-profits request donations, that makes sense. When for-profit print publications ask for subscriptions, people are disinclined to follow through because they don't actually want what they're presumably paying for.
  - nodata 16y ago
    I subscribed to The Atlantic today because of the quality of this (Vanity Fair) article. Why? It reminded me of how good some of the articles from The Atlantic website were.
  - jseliger 16y ago
    It's a nice sentiment, but expecting people to subscribe to your print magazine because they like reading your articles online is a recipe for a broken business model. Maybe so. But if you, as an individual, like the high-quality journalism that's being produced, the question is not whether the magazine has an optimal business model but whether you want to keep reading the high-quality journalism. The optimal way to signal that you do is to subscribe. When for-profit print publications ask for subscriptions, people are disinclined to follow through because they don't actually want what they're presumably paying for. I think I'm paying for high-quality journalism, unbiased stories, and deep reporting. It happens to be delivered in a convenient package of pages bound with a stable and mailed. What do you think you (or others) are paying for?
    - natrius 16y ago
      > The optimal way to signal that you do is to subscribe. Agreed. > I think I'm paying for high-quality journalism, unbiased stories, and deep reporting. It happens to be delivered in a convenient package of pages bound with a stable and mailed. What do you think you (or others) are paying for? You're not paying for that. Anyone can get that for free. You're donating your money to them so they can continue to do their work. You don't actually want what they're selling, you just want them to continue producing the stuff that they give away to everyone. Sounds like a non-profit to me. High-quality journalism isn't in much trouble. People are willing to pay for it (and my job security relies on that fact), but most publications are using a psychologically suboptimal way to get that money. If they explicitly said, "Donate money to us or buy a subscription so we can keep producing great journalism", they'd probably be more successful.
- splat 16y ago
  I believe many magazines make most of their money off of advertising, not subscriptions. In fact many magazines will subsidize their subscription prices in order to increase readership so that they can raise the price for advertisements.

Nice that we can still rely on Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and (sometimes) the Atlantic for journalism this thorough. Greece seems insane, of course - but there's always Italy.

mikebike 16y ago

Why the qualifier for the Atlantic? I find it tends to have more journalism than VF and New Yorker, which have more cultural content. In particular, the New Yorker will typically have one good piece of journalism per issue, where the Atlantic will have multiple.

code_duck 16y ago
Good point, I'm not sure what I was thinking. The Atlantic is generally excellent, too, I guess I'm just not as familiar with them.

jseliger 16y ago

The question is: do you convert that sentiment to subscribing? I ask because the only way good journalism venues can survive in the short to medium term is through print subscriptions, which subsidize their websites. (For those of you about to level the charge of hypocrisy: I get the New Yorker and the Atlantic. Reading the latter starting when I was a college freshmen has probably taught nearly as much as all my non-technical classes combined.)

natrius 16y ago
It's a nice sentiment, but expecting people to subscribe to your print magazine because they like reading your articles online is a recipe for a broken business model. People like good journalism and they're willing to support it, but such support needs to be requested in a logical manner. When non-profits request donations, that makes sense. When for-profit print publications ask for subscriptions, people are disinclined to follow through because they don't actually want what they're presumably paying for.
- nodata 16y ago
  I subscribed to The Atlantic today because of the quality of this (Vanity Fair) article. Why? It reminded me of how good some of the articles from The Atlantic website were.
- jseliger 16y ago
  It's a nice sentiment, but expecting people to subscribe to your print magazine because they like reading your articles online is a recipe for a broken business model. Maybe so. But if you, as an individual, like the high-quality journalism that's being produced, the question is not whether the magazine has an optimal business model but whether you want to keep reading the high-quality journalism. The optimal way to signal that you do is to subscribe. When for-profit print publications ask for subscriptions, people are disinclined to follow through because they don't actually want what they're presumably paying for. I think I'm paying for high-quality journalism, unbiased stories, and deep reporting. It happens to be delivered in a convenient package of pages bound with a stable and mailed. What do you think you (or others) are paying for?
  - natrius 16y ago
    > The optimal way to signal that you do is to subscribe. Agreed. > I think I'm paying for high-quality journalism, unbiased stories, and deep reporting. It happens to be delivered in a convenient package of pages bound with a stable and mailed. What do you think you (or others) are paying for? You're not paying for that. Anyone can get that for free. You're donating your money to them so they can continue to do their work. You don't actually want what they're selling, you just want them to continue producing the stuff that they give away to everyone. Sounds like a non-profit to me. High-quality journalism isn't in much trouble. People are willing to pay for it (and my job security relies on that fact), but most publications are using a psychologically suboptimal way to get that money. If they explicitly said, "Donate money to us or buy a subscription so we can keep producing great journalism", they'd probably be more successful.
splat 16y ago
I believe many magazines make most of their money off of advertising, not subscriptions. In fact many magazines will subsidize their subscription prices in order to increase readership so that they can raise the price for advertisements.