Preserving America's Thought Leader Magazines

Preserving America’s Thought Leader Magazines March 2020 Author Heidi Legg The views expressed in Shorenstein Center Discussion Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Harvard Kennedy School or of Harvard University. Discussion Papers have not undergone formal review and approval. Such papers are included in this series to elicit feedback and to encourage debate on important issues and challenges in media, politics and public policy. Copyright belongs to the author(s). Papers may be downloaded for personal use only. The beloved Out of Town Newsstand that has long been part of Harvard Square’s heritage is going out of business. The display of magazine titles from around the world is giving way first to a six-month popup and then to a tourist information bureau, yet another reminder of the fading magazine industry. But new business models are emerging that, if not proven, are at least promising and important to study. This paper explores two questions: How does brand affinity affect revenue models? What leads the digital reader to subscribe to a thought leader magazine? In exploring these questions, the paper starts with a brief history of the thought leader magazine with an emphasis on how they built trust, which is key to attracting loyal readers. The discussion then turns to brand affinity, as it relates to trust and affects revenue streams. Finally, the paper examines how six leading thought leader magazines – New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Wired, The Information, The Atlantic, and Rolling Stone – are all responding to changing public demand and delivery. Looking Back From Nast, Luce, Hearst, and Newhouse to Benioff and Powell Jobs America’s “general interest” magazine originated in Boston. Founded in 1857, The Atlantic was created as a “journal of literature, politics, science, and the arts.” Its founders included Francis H. Underwood and prominent writers Ralph Wal- do Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Greenleaf Whittier, with James Russell Lowell as the first editor. Lowell’s model became the norm. As The Atlantic described it, “Lowell un- swervingly trained his attention on American writers, providing a home both for the younger American talents, whom he cultivated, and for the established ones.”1 The dawn of the 20th century was a transformative period for American maga- (Nast) helped create zines. A Vanity Fair article captured the moment, “The dominant journals of earlier an industry that trad- decades—such as Harper’s Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Century—were ed on collaboration written explicitly for educated Protestant elites and usually expressed their read- and talent and pages ers’ provincial literary tastes and their class and ethnic prejudices. But the newer and pages of ads. He magazines (among them McClure’s, Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and Mun- saw talent as the link sey’s) sought, as one publisher put it, to convey the ‘whirlpool of real life,’ and to to driving readership do so in a more vivid way than the reserved publications of the past. Some charged and selling ads. He only a dime, and many had more accessible writing and engaged the concerns of gave them the world the emerging middle class. The result was a dramatic increase in magazine circu- stage, and paid them a lation, which more than doubled between 1890 and 1905—four times the corre- living wage. sponding growth rate of newspaper readership.” Standing over this period was Condé Montrose Nast. Nast was introduced to the industry at Georgetown University when he befriended publishing scion Robert J. America’s Thought Leader Magazines / March 2020 Magazines / March Thought Leader America’s The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy / 2 Collier, who needed to reboot Collier’s Weekly, a general interest magazine in New York. With 250,000 readers, Nast was charged with selling more ads. Over the next decade, he increased Collier’s ad revenue a hundredfold. He then left the magazine and purchased Vogue in 1909, transforming what was a small weekly society magazine into a leading fashion magazine, and then doing the same with Vanity Fair (originally named Dress when Nast bought it, then Dress and Vanity Fair) and turn- ing it into a general-interest magazine. At first focused on professional associa- The magazine market was profitable, and Nast put a priority on paying and nur- turing writers, photographers, graphic designers, fact-checkers, and editors, el- tions, such as groups evating them to an aspirational class. The promotion of Edna Woolman Chase of farmers, lawyers, or from gopher to top management by Nast signified a seismic shift in showing what nurses, American mag- this industry could and would do for many women and an entire class of writers, azines expanded to photographers, thinkers, and artists, and then in turn for American promise. He bring together social helped create an industry that traded on collaboration and talent and pages and and, then, economic pages of ads. Nast saw talent as the link to driving readership and selling ads. groups. When Nast found talent, he not only gave them the world stage, he paid them a living wage. Susan Ronald, author of Condé Nast, The Man and His Empire noted, “Soon enough (Nast) would be credited with creating café society; throwing the most awesome parties; finding young talent from the international arena who would change the way we think; and becoming one of the foremost Americans in- fluencing the export of the country’s can-do attitude, know-how, products, fashion, and style to the world. He wrote the first paycheck ever for the British playwright Noel Coward. Aldus Huxley, Compton Mackenzie and P.G. Plum Wodehouse were on his staff. He was the first to publish Edna St. Vincent Millay (writing as Nancy Boyd), Donald Ogden Steward, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, e.e. cummings, and many more in any magazine. Condé was also a high-tech pioneer-promoting cutting-edge technology in photography and printing, making his publications a byword for all that was modern.”2 Nast’s selling ability was rewarded by an industry that was flourishing. As a re- viewer noted, “The aftermath of the Gilded Age brought social upheaval: More of the economy was industrializing, more immigrants were arriving in the United States, and women were taking on more public roles...” Magazines offered readers a form of community, as people across the breadth of the country read the same articles, followed the same fashions, bought the same advertised products, and to some extent communicated with one another through letters to the editor. At first focused on professional associations, such as groups of farmers, lawyers, or nurses, American magazines expanded to bring together social and, then, economic groups, as Nast noticed.” Nast’s belief in talent was conveyed to Frank Crownin- shield, who as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair launched stars like Dorothy Parker, Al- dous Huxley, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and Djuna Barnes. Ronald describes Nast “as the first great connoisseur of editorial talent on an industrial scale. He was a curator of publications, editors, writers, photographers, and illustrators, picking up one creative after another and adding them to his collection, keeping them satisfied with promotions and ostentatious perks, which included paying off one America’s Thought Leader Magazines / March 2020 Magazines / March Thought Leader America’s editor’s mortgage.” The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy / 3 It is an interesting comparison between today’s tech barons and yesterday’s media barons, especially when we look at the current technology giants and their refusal to be called publishers, protected under Section 230 from any responsibility for third-party content. While both the tech giants of today and the media barons of the 20th century fueled their empire-building with ad sales, media moguls in the last century invested in narrative talent. In a stark departure, today’s tech giants don’t fund writers and photographers, instead they encourage and convert free user-generated content into the fuel that drives traffic gains, micro-targeting and data mining. Media moguls in the last century invested Henry Luce arrived on the scene soon after, creating his Time-Life empire, follow- ing in the footsteps not only of Nast but also William Randolph Hearst and Joseph in narrative talent. Pulitzer. Although Pulitzer confined himself to newspapers, Hearst expanded into In a stark departure, magazines, including Town and Country, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and Good today’s tech giants Housekeeping. don’t fund writers and photographers, Luce and his Yale classmate Briton Hadden founded Time as a weekly news mag- instead they encour- azine in 1923. It offered readers a condensed account of the week’s most import- age and convert free ant events. In 1929, as they prepared to launch Fortune magazine, Hadden died user-generated con- of streptococcus, leaving Luce to be both editor and publisher of Time Inc. Luce tent into the fuel that was paternal, responsible, level-headed, and budget-minded, traits he shared with drives traffic gains, Nast.3 micro-targeting and data mining. Then in 1936, Luce launched Life magazine to enable Americans “to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud.” Life was the apex of photojournalism with a heavily pictori- alized editorial called “The American Purpose.” Luce created Life with his second wife Clare Boothe Brokaw Luce, an early advocate of photojournalism, purchasing the title for $85,000 on their honeymoon. Boothe Luce today could be said to be prescient about the power of photography as a leading form of narrative as we see today with the rise of Instagram.

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