RIP Paste:
Magazine suspends print edition
A year after music title asks readers for donations
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Sep 2, 2010
Last summer, in the middle of a devastating recession, Paste appealed to its readers for donations in order to keep the independently owned music publication afloat.
Readers responded, and Paste was able to stay alive, but alas, not forever.
Yesterday Paste Media Group said it is suspending the print magazine, blaming the "prolonged downturn of the ad market."
In a note posted on the magazine's web site, editor in chief Josh Jackson says that subscribers will continue to have access of the digital version of the magazine on the web site through the June/July issue as Paste considers what Jackson calls strategic alternatives.
The note leaves the door open for Paste's print return some day, but that return does not seem likely anytime soon, considering the generally dire straits of print advertising and the sense among many that magazines won't ever return to early levels.
Paste made its appeal to readers in May of last year as a last resort. The magazine's staff realized that without reader donations it could not print the next issue, nor could it pay its freelance writers.
So it issued the appeal, hoping for donations in the "low six figures," Jackson told Media Life at the time. Under an arrangement worked out with numerous artists, readers who contributed were rewarded with free music.
Paste raised enough money to get through the crisis.
Paste's passing, after such a spirited campaign, says a lot about just how dire things became for print.
"Paste has been our baby," Jackson told Media Life last year.
"We’ve seen it grow from the tiniest publishing venture to one of the largest rock magazines in the world, thanks to a devoted readership and a talented group of contributors. I don’t ever want to see it go away, and I know other editors and publishers feel the same way about their magazines."
|
|
|
