I stopped paying when they started poisoning their articles with politics… It wasn’t even if I agreed or disagreed. It just spoiled the escape into the things that I loved. A friend walked into my office and told me to stop reading ‘that sh**’ because it was making me crabby.
I've read where 9/11 was the beginning of the end of print media. People started flocking to the internet for real time information.
Flash- Sheboygan, Wisconsin- 1921: ACME Buggy Company shutters doors. Sad day for Sheboygan. My great uncles, Aimis and Jebediah, lost their jobs… Surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Here’s my personal love story with newspapers and magazines. Yeah, I used to love newspapers and magazines; I read a lot of both. There were days where I’d read 3 to 5 different newspapers- St Pete Times, Tampa Trib, USA Today and sometimes one from Green Bay/Milwaukee, Houston (Chronicle or Trib), the Las Vegas Journal and sometimes an afternoon edition from the St Pete Times. On a normal day though, it was usually just the morning Times and USA today. For mags, I liked Sporting News much more than SI. Had a subscription to Ray Nitschke’s Packer Report for over twenty years, until it shut down (damn, let one slip away last night). Loved all the sports preview mags. There was a newstand (Henry’s) next to the grocery store I’d go to. I’d stop in at Henry’s all the time. It’s how I got the out of state newspapers. Now, I can’t remember the last time I read a newspaper or magazine. The ST Pete Times and Tampa Trib merged, I think it only publishes a Sunday edition now- wow... I owned a condo twenty years ago. It has forty four (44) units. In 2001, about 30-35 of them would have newspapers by the front door every morning. Now, there hasn’t been a newspaper delivered in many years. Henry’s is gone. It’s a Firehouse Subs now; I went there once. When I walk past a magazine rack in a store, it's now invisible to me… Just the way it is in 2024. No complaints. The internet is great, but I do get nastalgic for the days when magazines and newspapers were king.
Rick Reilly was the only writer I enjoyed on the SI staff. Used to look forward to his page each issue. Have not read in years. When they went woke with fat and old swimsuit models I knew their time was running out. Dems complain a lot but they don’t put money where mouth is. Like the studies on charitable giving where conservatives donate significantly more to non-profits. Dems want to use other people’s money for giving whereas Republicans use their own. Can’t listen to the screaming or noise, as it does not pay the bills.
SI has been in a tail spin for like 15 years while putting pretty cisgender ladies on the cover for all those years ... how does that factor in? Here is a detailed article of their demise from 2020 ... Sports Illustrated cautionary tale for print media | Olean | oleantimesherald.com
I was never an SI guy but have always been a very passionate car magazine guy and it is the same situation. I have subscribed to various car magazines since the 1970’s when I got my first subscription to Hot Rod Magazine. Over the years I have dropped my subs to every American publication for the same reason. I think (true for me at least) people engage with sports, hobbies, movies, ect in order to escape from the stresses and worries of everyday life, not be reminded of them. Car and Driver in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s is probably my favorite publication of all time, under the leadership of the late David E Davis they attracted a phenomenal stable of writers such as the late Brock Yates (who organized the Cannonball Run to protest the 55 MPH speed limit while on staff), Patrick Bedard (who had a terrifying wreck in the Indy 500 while on staff) and the incomparable Jean Lindamood. Or Peter Egan at Road & Track, the man is a national treasure. You felt like you went on their road trips, ate drank and drove with them. Now their writings are bland, safe, neutered, flavorless, inoffensive, uninformative press releases that seem written by their advertisers. They can’t describe a Ferrari gearbox without saying something trite like “switches gears quicker than a republocrat changes…….whatever”. Instead of providing the best possible escapist experience corporate content creators seem to be mandated to “use their platform” and I cheer each time one of these once great institutions slips beneath the waves. I’d rather it cease to exist than trundle on as some bastardized shell of itself. I do STILL subscribe to one magazine, EVO, a European magazine who’s byline is “for the love of motoring”, one of the few that haven’t (yet) succumbed to electric car and SUV-mania. Long may they live but if not, their founder Harry Metcalfe has two channels on YouTube where he says what is on his mind.
It factors in to one issue a year? What about the rest of the year? Pissing off more than half your subscriber base by taking random snipes at the Boogeyman of the day doesn't help either. What does President A's office BJs or President B's WMD profit motives have to do with catching touchdown passes? Nothing. Nothing at all. It's pretty easy to find a bunch of haters, if one wants to hate. I want an escape from hatred.
My first SI edition was the summer before my senior year in HS- August 81. Herschel was on the cover. It came weekly and it was almost like a friend- providing insightful national coverage when the local sports page was a veritable desert. It came with me to college at UF. It was such a nice break from the grind. Then it went with me as I left college. I subscribed for decades. Again- it was something to look forward to each week. I'll never forget coming home after a discouraging week of work to a cover of Danny W after our epic beatdown in 95. So sweet, such vindication... So I was a very loyal subscriber, but then.... As the years went by, it seemed to lose its footing, its priorities, its pov. It was all about "the cause"- whatever cause they were taking up that week. The last few issues in 20-21 I received were just painful. I kept thinking "Why would I care about this?" Like a dying dog, I finally put it out of its misery and canceled- with much sadness.
Can any one of their staff or even better hot bikini models coach special teams? No experience required.
