But you try getting fourteen ambitious, young reporters to sit at one table and agree on much of anything. In the end, we much preferred to keep our focus as wide as the roiling, kooky, glamorous, thoughtful, passionate world of magazines that is our own personal obsession.
Here are a few highlights. Rupal Parekh reveals an industry scam so unseemly that no magazine but NYRM seems willing to expose it: every year, 30,000 teenagers endure criminal conditions while crisscrossing America to hawk magazine subscriptions that may never arrive. Chris Fleisher wonders why gay magazines avoid images of same-sex canoodling while their straight counterparts have no trouble peddling birthday suits. (Is Out too busy romancing Mr. Big Advertiser, maybe?) Another magazine also on the hunt for the best advertising dollar is Azizah, a publication written for and by Muslim women. Muna Shikaki, talks to Azizah’s founder about why stories on birth control and breast cancer may help battle Arab-phobia. If only more magazines would ask us for advice; Corey Pein doles out plenty in a devilish memorandum to Condé Nast. Plus, we rounded up all the former Sassy staffers we could find, to figure out why today’s teen mags, like, pale in comparison.
So, if you slavishly read magazines from cover to cover (and those irritating subscription cards blown in between), this year’s NYRM is for you.