Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/03/18

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Death of Life
From: Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 17:14:54 +0000

Ted Grant wrote:
> 
> Harrison Mcclary wrote:
> 
> > The last issue of LIFE magazine was long ago...what has been out there the
> > past several years is a pretender "people" magazine with the LIFE head....>>>>>>>
> 
> Right on Harrison!!!
> 
> LIFE of yester year as you say, was put to bed many years ago. And this
> mickey mouse art student designer resurrected rag deserves to be shut
> down!   snip

> IT'LL NEVER HAPPEN!!!  IT WOULDN'T MAKE ANY MONEY!!!

I saw a segment on the demise on CNN and mostly they showed covers from
30 years or more ago.  The problem for all magazines is that the need
for the general purpose information journal has diminished.  Now all is
specialty mags to deliver targeted customers for the ads.  That is
economics. 

Remember a while back me discussing the NPPA magazine essay on Marc
Riboud's North Viet Nam story in Look?  It talked about how magazines in
the 30s, 40s, 50s were about bringing the experiences of the common man
to the common man.  Now it is celebrity and the good life. 

Some good newspapers still do "real" people stories,at least from NPPA
evidence, but even those are rare.  The media is not owned now by the
entertainment industry in order to inform people about the way things
are in the world.  Hardly.  

Spending time in a busy editorial picture agency yesterday I saw
virtually no interest in political images or war or disaster, but there
were three agency photographers on assignment to get pix of Leonardo
Dicraprio's step brother with handcuffs on.  (BTW, they did, scooping
all other media!  Bucks up.)  

If we go and tell people the real condition of the world, they won't buy
as much.  Just read Mother Jones and tell me if you feel like going to
the mall.

And that's life today.

donal
__________
Donal Philby
San Diego
www.donalphilby.com