I searched for a better metaphor than ‘hiding their light under a bushel’ after I remembered they were on public display. However, when I saw how the Whitcoulls national chain has relegated them to retail obscurity, I decided it was appropriate after all.

I’m talking about magazines. More specifically, the homegrown general interest magazines now facing an uphill battle to survive in printed form.

They struggle to stand out in the diminished (and in the case of Whitcoulls, almost hidden) space devoted to periodicals. They are overwhelmed by a multitude of special interest and foreign titles – cars, cars, cars and a heady mix of pseudo-psychological wellbeing and celebrity.

And they are further hampered by an unsympathetic NZ Post which, while it has doubled the price of mailing a letter, has tripled the cost of sending local magazines to subscribers.

Our magazines deserve better. And they deserve far better support from the New Zealand public. Not as a form of charity but because these publications are good, damned good.

I am not going to talk today about local titles aimed at women. My wife Jenny Lynch (a former editor of the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly) is a better judge of those than me. She is impressed by much of what she sees.

I am devoting this commentary to four titles: the weekly New Zealand Listener, the monthlies New Zealand Geographic and North & South, and the quarterly Metro.

Each, in its own unique way, makes an important contribution to New Zealand culture and to the chronicle that will become our collected past. So do others that I would include had I the time and space.

The mix in each of the four titles is eclectic. It has to be. We do not have the population to support narrowly focussed publications. No niche is big enough. Continue reading “Why we should treasure our magazines” →