Monday, December 03, 2012

Magazines Ahead of the Game

Would I be right that the coolest magazines in anything like mass-market distribution today would be Foreign Policy (aka FP) and The Atlantic--not necessarily the best, but the ones who best understand how to marshal the resources of the intertubes, and to capture the new reader sensibility?  Or at the very least, that they leave, e.g., Time and (the late) Newsweek more or less bewildered in the dirt?  I suppose the other end of the continuum would be the relentlessly unhip New York Review of Books (of which chez Buce is a paid up subscriber)?  Which makes you wonder about Rolling Stone, which exemplified hipness in another time but seems now to have settled into the nostalgia gig, like those Peter, Paul and Mary concerts that have become so familiar on public TV?

2 comments:

Jimbo said...

I think that's about right. Of course, I work on international development so I would be inclined towards FP anyway. Back in the day, I used to read Foreign Affairs but it is way too mainstream and academic for people who are practitioners. I have been an Atlantic (and Harpers) subscriber for decades - ideas matter! As for Time and Newsweek, frankly they crumbled into People Magazine style pseudo journalism a long time ago.

Taxmom said...

I think wired hits the sweet spot, and ironically we read the print edition.