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From: <Tomckayak_at_aol.com>
subject: Re: [Paddlewise] SK is OK was Magazine recommendations
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 09:29:06 EST
In a message dated 12/2/99 9:57:18 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
jmyers_at_longbranch.k12.nj.us writes:

<< The early years of Sea Kayaker were probably its best but I think this has 
 more to do with the nature of sea kayaking than the current editorship of 
 SK. >>

 The thing that made Sea Kayaker special were the safety articles. It was the 
main reason I collected back issues. I have an almost complete collection of 
the first ten years. Remember they use to be a quarterly. 

To this day no other sports magazine documents deaths/injures in their sport. 
>From people that worked at SK I know that the Editor is under pressure to 
down play the accident reports. 
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From: ralph diaz <rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com>
subject: Re: [Paddlewise] SK is OK was Magazine recommendations
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 10:18:51 -0800
Tomckayak_at_aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 12/2/99 9:57:18 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> jmyers_at_longbranch.k12.nj.us writes:
> 
> << The early years of Sea Kayaker were probably its best but I think this has
>  more to do with the nature of sea kayaking than the current editorship of
>  SK. >>
> 
>  The thing that made Sea Kayaker special were the safety articles. It was the
> main reason I collected back issues. I have an almost complete collection of
> the first ten years. Remember they use to be a quarterly.
> 
> To this day no other sports magazine documents deaths/injures in their sport.
> >From people that worked at SK I know that the Editor is under pressure to
> down play the accident reports.

Advertising is a mixed blessing.  While it helps sustain a publication,
it can also hinder its articles and editorial content.  I can't tell you
how often I have been approached to have ads (other than the free
classifieds) placed in my newsletter.  While it would be a nice chunk of
change, I just don't want to be in a position where saying something
that reflects negatively on say Feathercraft (as an example) might lead
to the company yanking ads that I might grew dependent on.  I am not
pretending to be holier than thou.  I am careful in what I publish.  For
example, I know of planned new model introductions before they come out,
new materials, etc. and, if told in confidence, I keep that confidence. 
However, if there is something wrong with a boat or some gear, I will
say so.  I think that an editor has to be "the reader's friend." 
Usually in publishing terms the phrase means clear writing and
presentation that answers all the questions a reader is likely to raise
on a topic.  But, by extension, I also feel the phrase means that the
editor/publisher has to do all he/she can to see that the readers gets
to know all they should, and need to, know about key issues and topics.

It is something I learned years ago when working for a company that
produced research publications and newsletters on international
business.  We had hundreds of multinational companies that paid big
bucks for our services.  But there was a thick firewall between the
client service officers and the editorial contents staff (where I
worked).  If something came up that was important information that the
general readership needed to know and a client didn't want us to publish
it on the strength of his clientship, we said goodbye to that client if
he threatened to leave.  This came at a price as it could cost $100K a
pop when that happened.

ralph diaz


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From: Bob Myers <bob_at_intelenet.net>
subject: Re: [Paddlewise] SK is OK was Magazine recommendations
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 11:19:22 -0800
On Dec 3, 10:18, ralph diaz wrote:
} Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] SK is OK was Magazine recommendations
> Tomckayak_at_aol.com wrote:
> 
> Advertising is a mixed blessing.  While it helps sustain a publication,
> it can also hinder its articles and editorial content.  I can't tell you
> how often I have been approached to have ads (other than the free
> classifieds) placed in my newsletter.  While it would be a nice chunk of
> change, I just don't want to be in a position where saying something
> that reflects negatively on say Feathercraft (as an example) might lead
> to the company yanking ads that I might grew dependent on. 


Oddly enough, this issue came up in this environment, the sea kayaking
mailing lists.

Those of you who have been around for a while know that most of us
used to post to the Wave~Length mailing list.  Now Wave~Length is
primarily a low-budget magazine, very nice in its own way, and
I'm not really too sure if they're non-profit or not.  

Once upon a time, the Wave~Length mailing list was getting kicked out
of its original home and I volunteered to host it on our servers.
Eventually I ended up running the list for a while when the Wave~Length
people didn't have access to email or something - I was never too
clear on what the deal was there.  So I took over for a time.

Then came Tim Ingram, Sponson-man. Tim's fanaticism very nearly killed
any rational discussion on the list. For a time I came very close to
banning him from the list to protect us all, but when I tried to do
that, there was an issue from the Wave~Length magazine people about
Tim's advertising at the magazine.  I don't believe that's the only
reason why they didn't want to ban him from the mailing list (I think
they were also overly concerned with "censorship" issues), but it was
an issue that came up.  I resigned from managing the list as I didn't
want to deal with the complications of running someone else's mailing
list when they had other agendas as well.

So what happened next?  Jackie volunteered to start a new,
independent, semi-moderated list, called Paddlewise, where disruptions
like Tim Ingram could be controlled without worrying about other
external factors, like advertising.  Almost everyone switched from
Wave~Length to Paddlewise, and here we are today.

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