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THE Magazine … Folding?


by Jerome Weeks 21 Sep 2009 9:04 AM

We’re awaiting confirmation on this. THE magazine has not paid its writers for a couple months and has now lost both its editor and publisher. But we can’t get a message to the owner, Santa Fe Publishing Group, because the only voicemail listed for it is full. A pity if THE does go under because […]
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We’re awaiting confirmation on this. THE magazine has not paid its writers for a couple months and has now lost both its editor and publisher. But we can’t get a message to the owner, Santa Fe Publishing Group, because the only voicemail listed for it is full.

A pity if THE does go under because it’s a handsome-looking publication that gave arts coverage — especially coverage of galleries — some needed ink. I was going to add, “and gave local cultural journalists and photographers an outlet and a freelance paycheck” — but well, it would seem, not so much lately.

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About Jerome Weeks

Jerome Weeks is the Senior Arts Reporter/Producer for KERA. Previously at The Dallas Morning News, he was the book columnist for 10 years and the drama critic for 10 years before that. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, American Theatre and Men’s Vogue magazines. View more about Jerome Weeks.

COMMENTS

  • Jerome: I agree with your feelings about THE. And even though I was a tiny (just tiny) bit creeped by the Paper City-style, Look-At-Me nature of their Out & About party pic spread, I understand how much Dallas folk thrive on that sort of thing, and that it probably got many more people to pick it up on a regular basis. In general, they had the most intelligent, printed coverage of the Dallas art scene, if there is such a thing as a Dallas art scene.

    I can’t help but wonder two things: a) did the name have anything to do with the demise (bringing up the pub in conversation, I’d always end up in something like an Abbott and Costello Who’s On First routine: “THE Magazine.” “Which magazine?”), and b) in the context of the current debate of whether or not we do love us some art, does it provide a reading from the applause-o-meter that we should look at?

    See, I didn’t even bring up Million-Dollar Gumby. Oops.

  • Tina

    Actually, they haven’t paid me for work I did in March — way more than a couple of months. Things clearly have been on the financial downswing there for quite awhile.

  • A pity? THE was neither a magazine nor handsome. Its recycled, ungainly look works only for trees and the content was frankly, uninspired. With more ads than content, art was not THE focus. Art, by its nature, demands high resolution, high quality reproduction. With two comments, obviously its demise will be as brief as its name and readership. THE Magazine…may it rest in pieces!

    • Not to defend the quality of the writing or the design in THE — it wound up stiffing its contributors, after all — but in print products, the high-res, high-quality reproduction you demand costs a lot of money. Which would have speeded THE’s demise much more quickly.

      It’s extremely rare to find a glossy, weekly or monthly, city arts publication. And when you do find one, I guarantee you, it’s full of ads, and it’s still just hanging on. The revenue base in a city is usually too small. The vast majority of high-res arts periodicals are national, international or regional in focus (Southwestern, New England, etc.) and they’re often genre or medium based (painting, theater, music, etc). As it stood, THE’s reproduction quality was generally better than daily newsprint. That made it less than D magazine or Paper City but better than the News or the Observer (until the Observer’s recent upgrade).

      But then, none of those publications is arts-focused.