Magazines

• Are magazines popular in your country? Are they read as much as they used to be read 20 years ago?

• What type of magazines is popular among your parents? Grandparents? Your friends?

• Study the content of the box below.

All magazines can be divided into three types: Consumer magazines targeting general reading audiences who are subsets of the general public with special interests. For instance, there are consumer magazines that cover homes, sports, news, fashion, teen gossip, and many more groups of readers. Trade and Professional: magazines targeting people working in trades, businesses and professional fields. These periodicals provide news and information for readers working in specific industries with advertising content focused on those industries or trades including job notices. House Organ: also known as in-house magazines. These periodicals are published by for-profit and not-for-profit organizations such as companies, special interest groups and affinity groups for their customers, employees, clients and members. Regardless of the type of magazine, whether it's a trade publication or a consumer magazine, there are many different jobs that require both editorial and sales staff. These jobs vary according to title and duties. For instance, a magazine publisher handles the daily activities, implements policies and supervises all the magazine's departments. Other jobs at a magazine include payroll clerks, secretaries and information technology professionals. Writers (journalists) are responsible for written content such as articles and editorials. Typically, there are a limited number of reporters on the staff full time. Most of the articles are provided by freelance writers. Freelance writers, unlike staff writers, are paid per article and don't receive any benefits like health insurance. Although the magazine may not have a large number of writers, a number of different editors may be employed full time. Executive editors are responsible for the administrative duties of the department. Managing editors are responsible for the day-to-day activities in the editorial department. Copy editors are responsible for editing articles written by writers and check for errors in punctuation, grammar and spelling. In addition, copy editors ensure that magazine articles are in alignment with the magazine's editorial policy and style. Associate editors assign writers articles, supervise projects and review submitted articles. Art directors are another segment of the editing team. Instead of articles, they are responsible for graphics and photographs. Magazines also have jobs that don't involve writing or editing. Advertising sales agents, also called executive accountants, are responsible for business-to-business sales. Circulation directors are responsible for creating promotions such as contests and promotion campaigns to obtain new readers for magazine.

• Answer the following questions

1. What consumer magazines can you list? What is the most popular consumer magazine in your country? What does it cover? What target audience does it have? What makes it so popular?

2. What trade and professional magazines do you know? What audiences are they targeted at?

3. Have you ever seen an ‘in-house magazine’? What is special about such magazines?

4. What magazine jobs are mentioned in the text?

5. What is said about the writers (journalists) who work in the magazines? Who is ‘a freelance writer’? What is the difference between a stuff writer and a freelance writer?

6. Describe the work of different types of editors in a magazine.

7. What other jobs are mentioned in the information box?

• Reading

• Read the note in the box below.

Advance Magazine Publishers Inc., doing business as Condé Nast, is a worldwide magazine publishing company. Its main offices are located in New York, Chicago, Miami, Madrid, Milan, Tokyo, London, Paris, and Moscow. It was founded in 1907 by Condé Montrose Nast. Condé Nast is credited with creating the now widely used magazine marketing strategy emphasizing magazines focused on a particular class or interest, sometimes known as lifestyle magazines. The group now includes 17 such publications, many of them the largest in their markets. It has an average total circulation of over 13 million issues a month, and an estimated actual readership five times larger than that.

• Look at the picture.

• Do you see any familiar covers? What magazines published by Condé Nast can be bought in your country? Do you read any of them? Speak about the magazines you know. Do you like them? Do you belong to their target audience?

• You will read two small articles about the famous magazines published by Condé Nast.

Vogue

Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast. Vogue was described by book critic Caroline Weber in The New York Times in December 2006 as "the world's most influential fashion magazine".

Vogue’s wide-reaching influence stems from various sources, including the persona and achievements of its most famous editor, its various charitable and community projects, its ability to reflect political discourse through fashion and editorial articles, and its move to emerging economies.

Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour, is widely credited as being one of the most influential figures in the global fashion industry, with the power to make or break a designer’s career. “Wintour’s approval can signal a commercial career for designers via investors who need a nod from a big gun like her to get their cheque books out,” says a famous American stylist.

Do you remember the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”? She is the inspiration behind the character Miranda Presley. She may be the Ice Queen but among her close friends including Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, Oscar dela Renta, Nicole Kidman and many others, she can be warm and loyal. And a lot of people want to get into Wintour’s inner circle of friends.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, along with another popular magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, composes ‘serious’ reading for American intellectuals. The weekly magazine was founded in 1925, and since the very beginning it has had a serious influence on the literary life of America. Among its authors were John Updike, Isaak B. Singer, Jerom D. Salinger, Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Brodsky. The New Yorker is famous for its big features, especially for ‘Profiles’, detailed biographies of celebrated people.

A typical issue of The New Yorker contains ‘The Comment’ (the section which dwells upon the most interesting events of the week); ‘The mail’, ‘The talk of the town’ (city news); ‘A Critic at Large’ (art, culture and music analysis), ‘Fiction’ (usually a short story by a famous writer, or a piece of poetry); and ‘Shouts and Murmurs’ (the humorous page). The magazine is also famous for it’s remarkable ‘one-line-caption’ cartoons.

The New Yorker is a magazine dedicated to ideas. It is timeless and immediate, energetic and thoughtful, serious and funny. It's about good writing, a point of view, and a deeper understanding of the world. It’s an eclectic mixture of political and business coverage, social commentary, fiction, humor, art, poetry, and criticism.

• How many names mentioned in both articles do you know?

• What magazine seems more interesting to you?

• Which magazine is supposed to contain more advertising? What sort of ads will they publish?

• Which magazine will offer its readers big features? Do you think that these magazines will probably have different house style (a magazine's preferred manner of presentation and layout of written material)?

• If you had a chance to choose a job in one of these magazines, which one would you choose? Give reasons for your choice.

Reading

• You will read an article published in the section ‘Shouts and Murmurs’ of The New Yorker magazine.

• Have you ever heard about ‘city legends’? Use the Internet to find the exact definition og this genre.