The other thread was getting a little long so I thought it would be a good idea to start this one in a new thread. I received an e-mail today from Gordon Whittington that he has hired Pat Hogan as editor. Pat comes from within the Intermedia outdoors family.
I received this e-mail because I was in the running for the position as editor and I have had several conversations with Gordon over the last few months regarding the position, and the direction the magazine is heading. I respect his decision and I also understand why they wanted someone in their Marietta office to edit the magazine. I was not willing to move to Marietta and despite my efforts to convince them to have an office in Brainerd where they do most of the TV work (they also own InFisherman) it became a disqualifying issue. While I am really disappointed, I had some serious reservations about the direction the magazine is going and I had expresed them boldly with Gordon. I think that Les Davenport's opinion does not do Gordon justice and there is more to the story than Les knows about the pressures that are being put on people there. I expressed my conviction that the readers need to feel like they are being put first, and that the magazine should never have the feeling that it is advertising driven. It needs to be subscriber driven. If you have the subscibers, you will have the advertisers.... they will come as a natural extension of having the trust of the readers. As soon as the magazine begins to feel advertiser driven, the wheels begin to come off and if you look at the posts on the other thread that seems to be the common opinion.
Let me back up a little and tell you how I have come to this conclusion. During the 1980's I was a full time trapper and did other stuff in the summer, such as working on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska, all that crazy stuff to "keep from getting a real job" as my wife would put it. That came crashing down in the late 1980's and I sucked it up and went to college at 30 years of age and got a degree in Journalism. One of the things i was taught is that to break into magazine writing you really need to start out with the magazines you really know, because you already understand what they are looking for. I took that to heart and sold my first article to Fur Fish Game before I had even graduated. I soon began selling to North AMerican WHitetail among others, and I worked hard at establishing a relationship with GOrdon and he bought a lot of my articles. My byline was right along side Les Davenport's in the table of contents but some things would happen that would mean that we would see things differently. I started an Iowa outdoor magazine in 1993 with a partner and soon bought out his half. It was called Haweye Outdoors maybe some of your remember it. I sold it in 1995 and began working for other magazines, I edited Fur Taker, MUSKIE, Wildlife control Technology, and I owned and edited Walleye Wisdom magazine before it went under in 2006. I also wrote more than 300 magazine articles and 8 books.
Having been invloved in this business as an ad salesman, tournament promoter, editor, writer, and magazine owner, I see things from a perspective that Les Davenport cannot. Seeing the business change over the years have been very distressing to me. The cost of printing has skyrocketed while the magazines lose readership to the internet. Many publishers are pushing the reader aside and bowing to the demands of the advertisers who are paying the majority of the bills. WHile the readers complain, the magazines continue doing it, not out of ignorance, but out of economic necessity. They run product plugs and new product reports and put the reader's needs secondary to the demands of those that are paying the bills: The manufacturers. It is a vicious circle and has led to the demise of many magazines and I hope North American Whitetail is not the next one on the list.
Back in the early 1980's I held in my hand the first edition of North AMerican Whitetail that came off the newsstand. I subscribed shortly after that, and for many years it was my favorite magazine and still stands near the top of the list. I have boxes upon boxes of back issues.
I am disappointed that I am not the new editor, but I do not think I could turn it around by myself anyway. I hope we are not seeing the beginning of the end.
Thanks for listening.
I received this e-mail because I was in the running for the position as editor and I have had several conversations with Gordon over the last few months regarding the position, and the direction the magazine is heading. I respect his decision and I also understand why they wanted someone in their Marietta office to edit the magazine. I was not willing to move to Marietta and despite my efforts to convince them to have an office in Brainerd where they do most of the TV work (they also own InFisherman) it became a disqualifying issue. While I am really disappointed, I had some serious reservations about the direction the magazine is going and I had expresed them boldly with Gordon. I think that Les Davenport's opinion does not do Gordon justice and there is more to the story than Les knows about the pressures that are being put on people there. I expressed my conviction that the readers need to feel like they are being put first, and that the magazine should never have the feeling that it is advertising driven. It needs to be subscriber driven. If you have the subscibers, you will have the advertisers.... they will come as a natural extension of having the trust of the readers. As soon as the magazine begins to feel advertiser driven, the wheels begin to come off and if you look at the posts on the other thread that seems to be the common opinion.
Let me back up a little and tell you how I have come to this conclusion. During the 1980's I was a full time trapper and did other stuff in the summer, such as working on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska, all that crazy stuff to "keep from getting a real job" as my wife would put it. That came crashing down in the late 1980's and I sucked it up and went to college at 30 years of age and got a degree in Journalism. One of the things i was taught is that to break into magazine writing you really need to start out with the magazines you really know, because you already understand what they are looking for. I took that to heart and sold my first article to Fur Fish Game before I had even graduated. I soon began selling to North AMerican WHitetail among others, and I worked hard at establishing a relationship with GOrdon and he bought a lot of my articles. My byline was right along side Les Davenport's in the table of contents but some things would happen that would mean that we would see things differently. I started an Iowa outdoor magazine in 1993 with a partner and soon bought out his half. It was called Haweye Outdoors maybe some of your remember it. I sold it in 1995 and began working for other magazines, I edited Fur Taker, MUSKIE, Wildlife control Technology, and I owned and edited Walleye Wisdom magazine before it went under in 2006. I also wrote more than 300 magazine articles and 8 books.
Having been invloved in this business as an ad salesman, tournament promoter, editor, writer, and magazine owner, I see things from a perspective that Les Davenport cannot. Seeing the business change over the years have been very distressing to me. The cost of printing has skyrocketed while the magazines lose readership to the internet. Many publishers are pushing the reader aside and bowing to the demands of the advertisers who are paying the majority of the bills. WHile the readers complain, the magazines continue doing it, not out of ignorance, but out of economic necessity. They run product plugs and new product reports and put the reader's needs secondary to the demands of those that are paying the bills: The manufacturers. It is a vicious circle and has led to the demise of many magazines and I hope North American Whitetail is not the next one on the list.
Back in the early 1980's I held in my hand the first edition of North AMerican Whitetail that came off the newsstand. I subscribed shortly after that, and for many years it was my favorite magazine and still stands near the top of the list. I have boxes upon boxes of back issues.
I am disappointed that I am not the new editor, but I do not think I could turn it around by myself anyway. I hope we are not seeing the beginning of the end.
Thanks for listening.
