Peter Costello
World of Books
Some days I stand in front of the magazine racks in Easons and wonder if the great era of the general magazine is now over. Are they, so to speak, now dead in the water, killed off by television and the internet? Certainly they are not what they once were.
The magazine as we knew it came into existence in the 18th century as a small leaflet. The Spectator of Addison and Steele (whose essays an older generation loved). In the early part of the 19th Century the general magazine emerged, as Chamber’s, Blackwood’s and others, store houses (as the name suggests) of varied things.
These were followed by the critical quarterlies in which the great issues of the day would be debated vigorously. In the latter half of that era the general magazine developed, Once A Week, The Strand, The Windsor and those aimed at the special interests of men and women came into being, such as Women’s Own and Practical Mechanics.
The magazines remained a powerful presence until WWII, then they began to shrink, then close. Television came and advertising went there rather than into magazines. More and more of them disappeared. And with the creation of the internet a new source of general information, to which anyone could contribute emerged.
What survived were, for a time, specialist magazines. But they too have now declined.
Take History Today, founded by Brendan Bracken. This managed to publish well informed authoritative articles on all aspects of history (and not just the Tudors and the Nazis). Recently this has undergone two major changes, and is now quite frankly rubbish. History Ireland and Archaeology Ireland are far, far better.
Shadow of itself
Then there was the Geographical Magazine set up by Francis Huxley. This too was a fine magazine, with wonderful writers and photographers, who really knew what they were writing about. That too has become a shadow of itself, partly it seems because the authoritative writers don’t want to write for it, and readers prefer box sets and the internet.
Another example, closer to home, is Ireland of the Welcomes. Founded in 1952, with fine design and lively editing, one could find there the likes of Sean O’Faolain and Frank O’Connor. But alas a few years ago Fáilte Ireland sold off the magazine to an Irish firm, who last year sold it on to American interests, who were interested only in the subscription list. It is now hardly worth looking at even in the shops.
I won’t lament the disappearance of the Saturday Evening Post, Look, Life and Holiday, the great magazines of the 1930s through ‘60s. All of these were a feast for the mind, the heart, and the eye.
The worst, the most horrendous example is what became of the National Geographic. Originally this was sold only through subscription and its arrival in the post with its yellow framed cover was a real treat. The magazine pioneered the use of full colour photography before WWI. The maps were horded by bed-sitting room travellers. The books the society published were marvels of production.
But there too the rot has set in. First the society moved into television with 20th Century Fox, which was owned by Rupert Murdoch. Now the whole shebang, or what is left of a once great enterprise, has been sold on to Disney.
The documentaries are rubbish, the replicating titles are mere travel advertising, the maps are gone and it seems the involvement with the like of Captain Cousteau, Jane Goodall, Louis Leakey and other scientists is a thing of the past. The pages have been reduced, the sensations increased, the important writers have gone elsewhere.
The decline of magazine publishing seems to reflect a general decline in seriousness, and true enjoyment. Readers have come to be seen not as customers, but as mere revenue streams.
It happened here too. Am I the only one to lament the passing of the Divine Word Magazine, a wonderful production over all its years, until changing times and changing tastes, and perhaps the decline of religion, killed it?
Still there are those, here and abroad, who are still cheered every month by a new issue of Ireland’s Own – a miracle of a magazine publishing in its unique Irish way.