I ran across this list from Good, who chose the 51 magazines that are the “Smartest, Prettiest, Coolest, Funniest, Most Influential, Most Necessary, Most Important, Most Essential, etc.”
In the introduction to the list, Graydon Carter writes “a magazine—like the smart, charming gazette you hold in your hands, even in this age of electronic everything everywhere, is a marvelous invention.” Its a message editors should remember in this online age in order to reconnect with readers on the page. Carter also writes, “Another essential difference between newspapers and magazines is this: Newspapers tell you about the world; magazines tell you about their world—and by association, your world. Writers, photographers, editors, and designers bundle the slice of the world they have chosen to explore and deliver it to you in a singularly affordable, transportable, lendable, replaceable, disposable, recyclable package.”
I think it’s a very good list. Nobody believes magazines are going away anytime soon. But many in the profession do believe that there is a shortage of “great” magazines. Even Carter senses there is the need for better energy in the business. “The single binding aspect of all the magazines subsequently mentioned in this issue, and this will seem obvious, but far too many editors ignore it, is that for a publication to succeed it has to have a point. It can’t just come into being because the owner wants to impress his friends. Or because market studies have shown an opening in a certain line of interest. Many of the big magazine companies, such as Time Inc., are run these days not by people who love magazines but by people in search of profit. Great magazines come from the gut and the heart.”
