Green Issue Overload: Lay Off Condé Nast

I rarely rise in defense of Condé Nast. Wired is an especially nasty competitor of Discover, even though their science coverage is a small part of their tech culture package. The New Yorker also competes with us for ad pages.

You have to give them their due, though. From my perspective, they are by far the most effective spokespeople in the world for the power of magazines. Their editors are industry giants who straddle the worlds of media, fashion and entertainment. Do you ever hear Anna Wintour or Graydon Carter whining to the trades about the growing influence of blogs or some other piece of Internet hype? I don't think so. I would be surprised if there were many tables set aside for bloggers at the Waverly Inn.

More importantly, every bit of Condé Nast's DNA is attuned to extracting maximum dollars from advertisers. As I pointed out in a blog post a couple of months ago, along with your 12x schedule, Condé can deliver an integrated program featuring Beyonce caressing your product online, polybagged and on national TV.

This is why the drumbeat on FOLIOmag.com about Vanity Fair's and the New York Times's green issues and recycled paper (or the lack thereof) is so off the mark. For better or worse, green issues aren't about public advocacy. Seriously, how can Madonna, who has a private jet and at least five enormous homes, be the cover girl for conservation?

The big publishers' green issues are about selling pages to advertisers who want to be associated with green content. And until those advertisers demand that their ads be printed on recycled paper (and provide the revenue that offsets the increased cost), the green issues will keep coming out on the same paper stock as every other issue.

In the meantime, please pick up the "Better Planet" issue of Discover on newsstands now. We are printed on FSC-certified paper and, after an extensive survey of our greenhouse gas emissions, purchased a carbon offset from carbonfund.org. You can also click over to our Better Planet blog or enter our Green Science Fair.

Happy Earth Day.

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By Henry Donahue -- Henry Donahue is the CEO of Discover Media LLC, the publisher of Discover magazine and Discovermagazine.com. Donahue was formerly CFO of Primedia's Lifestyles Magazine Group, a 30-plus magazine division, which included Soap Opera, Crafts, Boating, Equine and History titles.

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Re:Green Issue Overload: Lay Off Condé Nast

Submitted by Kya X on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 03:32.

Just like other printing companies that struggling and cutting an enormous number of their workers due to economic recession, it seems that the blender magazine is following the same path. Blender magazine will now quit printing, and will just switch to an entirely online format. It looks like short term loans couldn't help their decreased revenue enough and they are no longer able to avoid layoffs. The magazine joins numerous other journals and newspapers that will no longer be able to keep up with costs associated with printing and the number of staff required to keep a publication circulating. The number of online only publications has been exploding, and many people are predicting the death of the newspaper and the magazine within the next decade. Among the first casualties appears to be Blender magazine.

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