Chapter 9

   It is hard to imagine magazines as "general interest" but they were. "After the war and through the 1950's, general interest magazines were the most prominent publications, offering occasional investigative articles but also covering a wide variety of topics aimed at a broad national audience" (289). If magazines were like this today, they would be out of business. Nowadays, people can get their general interest news instantly from TV, the internet, and daily in newspapers. If they had to wait for a magazine to come out, they would probably cease to function. I know that whenever I hear someone talking about a story that I don't know about I feel so out of the loop and sometimes even dumb. Maybe that is the problem with news now, there is so much of it that we have trouble sorting out the important news, from the ridiculous stories. Just the other day I say a story from ESPN saying that Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber would be letting his dreadlocks hang out of his helmet this upcoming week. REALLY? Is that honestly newsworthy? However, if they don't report it then someone else will. Which begs the question, How much news is too much news?
   With the internet, newspapers, and round the clock TV news, magazines have had to adapt many times throughout the years. They have now become the most specialized form of print to date. With many different categories ranging from consumer magazines to farm magazines. Personally, I enjoy reading magazines like Sports Illustrated. It features a number of different sports articles and they always have the best pictures in them as well. Being specialized, magazines were able to go where TV and newspapers wouldn't go. For example "Playboy, started in 1953 by Hugh Hefner, was the first magazine to do this by undermining the conventional values of pre-World War II America and emphasizing previously taboo subject matter" (296). Playboy magazine focuses on more adult subject matter, and of course features pictures of beautiful naked women. It reached a certain niche audience that TV simply couldn't reach. That is why it was so successful.
   With all the capabilities and the wide reach of the internet, it is only a matter of time before all magazines have at least some online articles. It is already starting, there are full online magazines such as Salon and Slate, and also print magazines with online articles such as Time and Entertainment Weekly. The media convergence doesn't stop there. It is also seen in the opposite direction, like "cable network ESPN started ESPN The Magazine" (302). Whenever I go onto espn.com I always see links to ESPN The Magazine writers, articles, and covers. The website and the cable channel alike are great advertisers for their magazine. People who just can't get enough ESPN can now see it everywhere. Also, "Oprah Winfrey's O: The Oprah Magazine, and Reader's Digest's launch of Everyday with Rachael Ray" take advantage of the popularity of TV shows (303). Media convergence is everywhere, you just have to look.