A recent Perspectives contributor lamented the disappearance of magazines in waiting rooms, which moved me deeply. Occasionally, I forget to pack entertainment for my child and they take my phone, leaving me with nothing but the gears in my head. But it’s more than that.
I love magazines. When I was in college, I tore the ads out of my Vogue and would paper my dorm room walls with them. I buy an issue of the fashion magazine every time I fly, and I impulse-subscribed to a few print magazines and even read them, although I canceled my The New Yorker subscription because it came too frequently.
There is something about magazine journalism that just hits different. I like the long-winded articles, the advertisements and the feel of the glossy paper in my hand. As a features writer, I know that these issues are painstakingly planned, often six months or more in advance.
As print media flounders in a digital ecosystem, staff writers are vanishing with your waiting room magazines. Today’s magazines have small staffs and a rotating cast of freelance contributors whose benefits they don’t have to help pay for. Unfortunately, traditional media still hasn’t figured out a sustainable business model in today’s world of short-form, vertical content delivered to us by algorithms.
I will likely never land a staff writer role at Condé Nast — and it’s not just because I don’t want to move to New York City. Media as we know it is dead, we can only remember its legacy.
I’m Nia Norris and this is my Perspective.
