Salon.com > Magazines

Cosmarxpolitan: Sex advice from Karl Marx

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:55:00 +0000

Rife with double entendres and political wordplay, here is your new favorite dishy Tumblr, Cosmarxpolitan, in which Karl Marx rations out sex advice for your average proletarian gal.

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A new doom for magazines: Smartphones

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:35:00 +0000

The good news: Ever since I purchased my first iPhone, I've never been bothered by long lines at the grocery store. By the time I've checked my email, Facebook, Twitter, ESPN and the New York Times online, I'm watching the cashier tote up my bill. No more boredom! Yay! Quality of life, enhanced!

The bad news: The Financial Times' Emily Steel has the scoop: Off-the-rack magazine sales are getting hammered by a world of smartphone-addicted people just like me. Profession of journalism, battered again!

Data released on Thursday show a big decline in single-copy sales of U.S. magazines at newsstands and retail outlets, amid increased digital competition and reduced retail space. Single-copy sales fell 9.5 percent to about 26.7 million in 2012 from the previous year, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

"U.S. magazine executives," writes Steel, "call the habit the 'mobile blinder' after the vision-narrowing headgear worn by racehorses, and say the trend is wreaking havoc on the industry."

Sandy’s heroes get the Vogue treatment

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:34:00 +0000

In the new issue of Vogue, Annie Leibovitz shoots key responders to Hurricane Sandy — alongside some of the top models in the industry, dressed in designer togs. There are the models, reclining at the Lexington Avenue Armory while National Guardsmen lift crates of food; there they are pulling just a bit of focus from the neonatal nurses of Bellevue. Ms. Leibovitz even road a Coast Guard response boat in order to nail her shot of three sylphlike models rising from the sea on a military vessel.

Hack List No. 3: Newsweek

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:15:00 +0000

This year, my annual list of the worst of political media highlights not just individuals, but the institutions that enable those individuals. The 2012 Hack List will be counting down the 10 media outlets that are hurting America over the next two days -- stay tuned! (Previous Hack List entries here, here and here.)

One shouldn't speak ill of the dead, I know. But if Newsweek has taught me anything this year, it's that death is not truly the end, because Heaven Is Real, According to Science.

Yes, that was an actual, for-real Newsweek cover this year: "Heaven Is Real." It was the dumbest, probably, but not actually the worst. This year's Newsweek covers also included naked bondage lady, and sexy lady about to fellate asparagus (a stock image that had also quite recently been used in at least two other magazines). There was "what if Princess Di was alive and my friend," too, but that was from 2011.

Pundit: GOP should buy women’s magazines

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:59:00 +0000

In a New York Post editorial, Instapundit’s Glenn Harlan Reynolds has a simple reason for why Republicans performed poorly with “low-information” female voters: The party didn't make nice in the media. Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson threw $150 million at the campaign but Reynolds would like to see the money spent on a friendlier brand of propaganda than attack ads:

My suggestion: Buy some women’s magazines. No, really. Or at least some women’s Web sites…

For $150 million, you could buy or start a lot of women’s Web sites. And I’d hardly change a thing in the formula. The nine articles on sex, shopping and exercise could stay the same. The 10th would just be the reverse of what’s there now.

For the pro-Republican stuff, well, just visit the “Real Mitt Romney” page at snopes.com, or look up the time Mitt Romney rescued a 14-year-old kidnap victim, to see the kind of feel-good stories that could have been running. For the others, well, it would run articles on whether Bill Clinton should get a pass on his affairs, whether it’s right that the Obama White House pays women less than men, and reports on how the tax system punishes women.