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I like magazines. I subscribe to Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, ESPN the Magazine, Baseball Digest, Maxim and Esquire. I subscribed to Blender before it went belly-up and had a gift subscription to Paste, a great music magazine. I previously got Relix for free for a while, and for some reason I get Us Weekly, Car and Driver, TV Guide and Readers Digest, even though I never subscribed. I also get the Penn State and Saint Joesph’s alumni magazines.

The Internet is great. Hey, I’m using it right now to share this info. But you can’t underline or circle a word on the Internet. You can’t bring the Internet to your dad so he can read an article about Hank Aaron. Pitchfork is great, but there’s still something about a band being on the cover of Rolling Stone (despite that terrible song).

Like newspapers, magazines are hurting. There’s a lot of good work being done by magazines, whether it’s investigative political journalism, Sports Illustrated Tom Verducci’s blowing the cover off the steroids scandal a few years ago or a great Of Montreal profile in a recent issue of Paste. If these magazines go out of business, yes, my apartment will be a lot tidier, but it will be a travesty. Blogs and Web sites can only get you so far.

I’ve written for a small handful of magazines — a cover story for the Ursinus College alumni mag a few years ago and a recent contribution to Wonka Vision, a Philadelphia-based punk publication — so I guess I have a small vested interest in the future of magazines, besides my concern as a reader.

Paste, apparently, is in trouble. It is looking for contributions here and is offering a slew of free tracks and raffle prizes to sweeten the deal. Click through and check that out if a magazine like Paste speaks to you. And if you’re on the fence about renewing one of your subscriptions, or considering starting a new magazine subscription, now would be a good time to make those choices.
 

About the Author

Education
Penn State University, University Park
Bachelors degree: Journalism, English minor
Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia
Masters of arts degree: Writing studies
Manchester University, Manchester, England
Communications

Selected Publications
The Weekender, LexisNexis Securities Litigation, ESPN.com, The Associated Press, Philadelphia Daily News, Philly Edge, Universitywire.com, The Daily Collegian

From
Pittston

Resides
Scranton

Archives

• December 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008