Beyond The Tabloid
Standing in line at Target or any given grocery store, they stare you boldly in the face: flashy colors, distorted faces, headlines like fish hooks that reel you in with half-truths. Open one up and you never know what you might find, but it'll surely entail the humiliation and exposure of a person not so different from you and I. Tabloid magazines have become the standard for sensational celebrity stories and scandals alike since 1883, when a man named Benjamin H. Day printed the first issue of The New York Sun. In those days, the most popular newspapers could only be obtained by subscription, but Day's paper was sold for a mere penny-even the poorest could afford it. Day kept sales of the Sun high by printing juicy, too-good-to-be-true stories that caused it to fly off the proverbial shelves. This began the beginning of what was known as "yellow journalism," reporting based loosely off exaggerated or misrepresented stories, and many other publishing companies soon followed Day's lead, even going as far as to create social gossip themselves only to report on it later.
As we look back through history, we see that magazines have not always had the best impact or reputation. So how have magazines, so often playing on the private lives and heartaches of those in the public eye, been informative, useful, and engaging in the past? What did members of history gain from reading them?
"These [journals] sprang from the revival of learning, the need to review its fruits, and the wish to diffuse its spirit as widely as possible."
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, magazines were first written with the object of edifying and counseling their readers. The first long-term publication of a magazine is thought to be Johann Rist's Edifying Monthly Discussions, first produced in Hamburg, Germany. Far from exploiting its topics or generating profits with gossip, Discussions was full of theological discussions, recently-published book summaries, and scholarly articles. "Soon after there appeared a group of learned periodicals: the Journal des Sçavans (later Journal des Savants; 1665), started in France by the author Denis de Sallo; the Philosophical Transactions (1665) of the Royal Society in England; and the Giornale de' letterati (1668), published in Italy and issued by the scholar and ecclesiastic Francesco Nazzari. A similar journal was started in Germany a little later, the Acta eruditorum Lipsiensium (Leipzig; 1682); and mention may also be made of the exile-French Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1684), published by the philosopher Pierre Bayle mainly in Holland to escape censorship. These sprang from the revival of learning, the need to review its fruits, and the wish to diffuse its spirit as widely as possible."
In 1672, the first entertainment magazine was born. Le Mercure Galant was written and published by a French author and playwright named Jean Donneau de Vizé who filled it with songs, poems and flirty gossip. Though he was criticized by the surrounding intellectual societies for the less weighty content, the periodical was extremely well-received by the French populace and enjoyed for many years afterwards.
Speeding into the future about 70 years and zooming in on the newly forming colonies of North America, we see that the first American magazines were introduced in 1741. Benjamin Franklin was competing with his fellow newspaper publisher, Andrew Bradford, to produce the first periodical-Bradford, the victor, beat Franklin with his (originally titled) American Magazine. Franklin was only three days behind him with the release of the General Magazine. Though neither of the two lasted very long-both had ceased to be published after six short months-they sparked a desire for magazines and the snappy, lively stories they promised that never went away in what would become the United States of America. At the dawn of the 19th century, there were more than 100 individual magazine publications in the still-young nation, among which was the influential Pennsylvania Magazine, edited by Thomas Paine. And while most of them, as stated before, were directed towards the wealthier classes (those who could afford to read about intellectual studies as well as pursue them), there nevertheless grew a wide range of cheaper, less factual papers that focused on entertainment for the masses.
Another huge milestone in the history of magazines was the first publications of magazines for men and women separately. One of the first was the famous Godey's Lady's Book, a Philadelphia-based publication full of art, poems, and articles for the modern woman. Even more popular became Ladies' Home Journal, created by Cyrus Curtis and edited by his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis. This magazine boasted recipes, housekeeping tips, fashion advice, and poems specifically for the housewife and debutante alike. Fifteen years after its 1883 publication date, it became the first United States magazine to reach more than 1 million subscribers.
The 1900s saw the birth of many magazines that are still circulated around the world today: National Geographic, Reader's Digest, Time, Sports Illustrated, and dozens more, classified as "special interest" magazines that were voraciously devoured by millions of people. By narrowing their target audiences, publishers found that their markets expanded, so there was always something for everyone, and magazines continued to grow as their content did too. While not all of them evolved for the better, some became more inclusive with time, such as Sports Illustrated, which shifted from focusing on sports only played and enjoyed by the wealthier class, to publishing pieces about every major sport or outdoor activity. Thanks to the stellar leadership of journalist Andre Laguerre, who became assistant manager in the 1960s when the company was still small, Sports Illustrated is well known for its factual, informative, lively coverage and still widely read today.
At the end of all this, what can we learn? Perhaps to not write magazines off by classifying them all as gossipy tabloids, but to seek out better ones? I know for myself that magazines have never seemed like a source of true and positive information, but it is clear that we can all learn something from the publishers of the past, who sought to preserve and enhance the spirit of learning by uniting their readers. And while these things can be done in other ways, a magazine is incredibly convenient and transportational in a way that a book is not. Let us seek to be well-rounded in our use of media, engaging with both the sturdiness and reliability of the book and the colorfulness, relativity, and excitement of the printed magazine.
by Meg Severance