Sunday, July 13, 2008

Is it just Ed, or is the economy starting to hit magazines HARD?!

Not to be a downer, but Ed's gonna be honest—when all the reports came out about the current economic recession—or as Mister Bush likes to put it, a "slowdown"—he didn't really think he'd be affected all that much. Sure, maybe those suits down by Wall Street, but Ed? No way. But ever since Ed's own place of work has been cutting way back on its own magazine pages as a result of advertisers feeling the money crunch, he's been wonderin'...once they cut back on enough pages to stop the financial bloodshed, how much of the magazine will be left? And if they don't want to sacrifice content, will they start sacrificing employees like (gulp) Ed himself? After all, Ed doesn't work at any small mom and pop paper—this is a big national monthly that, well, is frankly starting to resemble more of a tabloid with its page numbers. And what about the people from recently closed Quick and Simple and Golf for Women? Did they get the ax because of already low newsstand numbers, or is the economy to blame?

Obviously, Ed's gettin' pretty nervous...but he's not losing hope yet. Please share—are you feeling the effects at your own publications?

4 comments:

rytrgal said...

Sadly, I agree. I work at a trade publication within a mid-sized association, and a few months back they eliminated our CFO position. They're also thinking harder about whether they want to fill positions after people leave. It's definitely scary!

Laura Carney said...

Yes, I absolutely know what you mean. I was laid off two months ago from a job I had only started in January. My company, Edgell Communications, laid off six people when they realized they were doing horribly financially -- it was certainly very shocking. It seems nearly impossible to get a new job in this economy, too. Everyone told me I should have nothing to worry about because of my experience, but I'm still finding it quite difficult.

Secretista said...

Thankfully, I'm not feeling it. My internship has been able to manage paying me, but we are a small staff, so...

But I would like to point out that no matter where the economy goes, magazines are here to stay.

The way I see it is, will books ever go away? No. As long as there are waiting rooms and such, viva magazines!! AI AI!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'm definitely feeling the economic crunch. In fact, the managing editor at this LA-based magazine I work at recently got laid off due to money woes. It's really scary. We only have like 3 full-time staff members, and everyone else is an unpaid intern doing a lot of grunt work. I'm really worried that the magazine might have to fold :(