30: Utne Reader
Interview with editor David Schimke, February 2009
Play audio (approximately 30 minutes)
The topic of this, the 30th installment of Periodical Radio, is Utne Reader. Launched in 1984 by Eric Utne, the magazine’s purpose is to present “the best of the alternative press.” This illustrated monthly anthology is a convenient and attractive way to read stories not found in the mainstream media. To learn more about the past, present and future of Utne Reader and the alternative press, my guest today is editor David Schimke.
Steve: David, welcome to Periodical Radio.
David: Thank you, good to be here.
Steve: Eric Utne founded the magazine in 1984. Can you tell us a little about Eric and what his vision was for Utne Reader?
David: Sure thing. We have an issue that we do every year called “Top Visionaries,” and I consider Eric to be one of those visionaries. He’s a philanthropist, but he’s also a social activist, and he had an idea to start . . . this actually started as a newsletter. The idea at the time was to give people an opportunity to see a sampling of all the small press and independent media that was taking place around the country that you couldn’t get at your local newsstand. So it really started out as a Reader’s Digest of sorts of the alternative media. It’s interesting now that we see what’s going on with the internet, because there’s all these places people go to sift through various publications, all these portals. Long before the internet, Utne was really the first alternative press portal in print. The magazine took off very quickly. There were two or three of these newsletter-like publications, and they pretty quickly moved into a magazine mode, because they saw they could make some money with it and keep it sustainable. In the early 1990’s, it really took off. If you look back at that time, there are press clippings in every major newspaper. That’s when Utne Reader, the name itself, became a really popular one. At one point the top recognized brand for progressive media was Utne Reader. I think it’s still in the top 5 or 10, actually. But one of the things Eric added to just the digest element were filters. The editors functioned as filters. As the magazine matured into the early 1990’s, it became a magazine about looking for trends, and getting ahead of the mainstream press. You were seeing all these stories bubbling up and all these movements bubbling up in the alternative and independent media on the ground at the grass roots. So the magazine, a national publication like Utne Reader was combining sources and recognizing some fairly big trends. For instance, one of the things Eric recognized long before it got any national media attention was that there was an emerging men’s movement, and he got on top of that. That’s really how the magazine got started and began to mature.
Steve: I see that Eric is still recognized as founder on Utne’s masthead, and he contributed a column in the Nov/Dec. 2008 issue. What’s his role today at the magazine?
David: I’m really excited, because he hasn’t really been directly involved for a while. Nina Rothschild Utne, who at the time she was running the magazine was married to Eric, took the magazine over from Eric and ran it for a while. So his name stayed on the masthead I think as kind of an honorarium. But in the last couple of years now, Eric and I have gotten to know each other really well, and spent time together. He’s a great resource and a great ambassador for the magazine. We’ll probably talk about this a little bit during our time together, but the magazine much more resembles what Eric started out doing, more than it has for a few years. So I think he’s very happy with it, and he’s agreed to write a column for us every other issue, which I’m very excited about. He’s also going out speaking about the magazine, and we’re going to be putting together an editorial advisory board in 2009, and he’ll be on that. So he’s involved as a consultant in spirit. On just a practical level, we get together for coffee every four or five weeks and brainstorm and talk about the magazine.
Steve: So David, go ahead and tell us some about how the content is returning more to the original roots.
David: Sure. There was a feeling in the late 1990’s and moving into 2000 that because of the internet, the digest element of the magazine wasn’t as valuable, or somehow was going to get overshadowed. So a number of things happened when Nina took over the magazine, I think wisely. Initially they chose to focus more on it as a progressive lifestyle magazine, and more of a social activist handbook, so it was less of a digest, and more of a . . . I guess I would compare it more to what you would see on the newsstand like Plenty (which actually just went out of business) or Good, or Yes, magazines that were very friendly to the activist community and kind of functioned as handbooks. I really think that at that point, the magazine’s personality got a little bit washed out. There was some confusion among the readership about what we really were, and I think it watered down what we did best. So three years ago March, Nina sold the magazine to an entity called Ogden Publications, which is based in Kansas. Ogden owns Mother Earth News, and Natural Home magazine. At the time we were sold, we had reached a point where it was fairly clear that we weren’t going to be able to sustain the magazine any longer. So Ogden took us under their wing, and they’ve been fabulous. They left Nina on as a consultant early on. Not only did they love what we do, but they really encouraged us to take some chances and do what we thought was best for the magazine, regardless of the economic ramifications, because they had the strength and the backing to sort of prop us up for a while. So in meeting with the publisher and editorial director Bryan Welch, we both agreed both because it was my strength as an editorial person, and also because we both agree that Utne Reader really at its best represented this digest-like quality of the best of the alternative press. So we shifted back to that about two and a half years ago. I’m proud to say at this point that we’ve reestablished ourselves as a beacon for independent media and alternative media. It’s a little bit harder news, a lot more sources, a lot more celebrating the publications in our library. We have about 1200 publications that come through our library every month. I think we saw our circulation drop, but now we’re seeing it solidify. We’re really doing well online, and I’m really proud of it. I come from a background in alternative media. I was a reporter and columnist and editor at alternative weeklies, so it’s much more true to what I think is important right now.
Steve: You still have some content that’s written by your editorial staff, correct?
David: Yes, and in fact I should clarify the fact that we are pushing more toward that digest and celebration of alternative media doesn’t mean that we’re all completely going to be reprint. I think it’s probably about 60% to 70% reprint, and 30% original work. But even that reprint work, the work we do as editors is taking large pieces or several pieces and stitching them together, putting together what we call multi-source items in the front of our magazine, where we’ll see a trend in say desertification in certain parts of the world. So we’ll have a freelance writer or a staff writer go out and do research, and turn to all the journals and periodicals that we’re seeing come through the library, do some original interviews of their own, so it’s sort of a hybrid of original journalism and source journalism from other periodicals. We do that throughout the magazine. We also do some freelance assignments where we’ll send a freelance writer and photographer out just to do something we find interesting that we know our readers will like. For instance, in the March/April issue we have this wonderful story about a Native American tradition that’s evolved around gay and lesbian transgender individuals, a Native American celebration. We sent a freelance photographer to shoot that story, and a freelance writer to do the reporting. So again, it’s a hybrid, and we do a little bit of both.
Steve: Do you ever accept unsolicited manuscripts or pieces that haven’t been published previously?
David: We do, actually. Absolutely when it comes to freelance pitches, because our goal as a magazine is to be in front of the mainstream media and to spot things. So if I get a good story that comes through my queue, I definitely tune into it. Then of course we get manuscripts that are either in the works or maybe they have an agent or a publisher, but it hasn’t yet been published. We’ll sometimes excerpt from those things, as well.
Steve: For the stories that have been published, how does the copyright work on that reprinted material? Do you have to negotiate a permission with the publisher for each article, or do you have a standard that you follow?
David: We actually have to do each article individually. There’s an associate editor here named Julie Hanus who does a lot of that work. We’ve always had, actually in the history of the magazine there’s always been an editor who’s spent a fair bit of time working on that. It really depends on the piece. Some magazines own the work, so you negotiate directly with the magazine. Some freelance contracts have the writer owning the work, so we negotiate with them. It really varies, and the price varies. What we find is that we’re able to get the work relatively affordably, in large part because we celebrate the work. So if it’s a publication, for instance, not only do we reprint the piece, we do a little write up of the magazine that it’s from, we feature them online. Oftentimes if not always, my goal is to print from lesser known publications, so they’re usually publications with a smaller circulation. It’s usually a little easier to negotiate those rights than it would be to negotiate rights with Andrew Sullivan or somebodye like that, who if we wanted to reprint a piece that had initially appeared in the Atlantic or something, that would be more expensive. But we will do that too, at times, if we find something really strong. We’ll pay a little more for it. Julie’s great. We have a certain budget that we work with each issue, and we just stitch together what we need to and try to hit that number.
Steve: Does Julie ever run into a problem where it’s not a problem getting permission for the text, but there’s a difficulty with the illustrations or the photography?
David: Actually, yeah, we have to negotiate that separately in most cases. If it’s a publication sometimes we can get rights to the art work, but we actually do most of our artwork originally. So if it’s a piece we illustrate, our art director Stephanie Glaros is really wonderful, and one of the things we like to do in the magazine as well, and the magazine has a reputation for this, is celebrate the work of illustrators and photographers who work in independent and alternative media. So we actually go out and contract our own illustrators. There will be an occasion where the illustration of the piece is so perfect and great we want to run it, so then we negotiate those rights. Sometimes we’ll negotiate it individually with the photographer. The one thing you’ll find is that photographers and illustrators typically have a different contract with magazines than writers. They’re not as broad, so typically you have to do a little extra negotiation to get a hold of that work. The amazing thing about Julie is that I’ve been working with her as editor for a little over three years, and I’ve been at the magazine for almost six years now, and there’s only been like one or two occasions when we haven’t be able to get something.
Steve: David, Utne Reader is billed as “The Best of the Alternative Press,” but some recently reprinted articles come from what I would consider the mainstream, like Columbia Journalism Review and Foreign Policy. What qualifies as “alternative” for Utne?
David: Ah, it’s a fairly broad definition. I think what we try to do is almost always focus on publications, again, that aren’t as available or are a little bit smaller. Where we will sort of push that is when we find something that we think is so important, or so well done that we want to get it in front of as many people as possible. For instance, Columbia Journalism Review is a little more main stream, as is Foreign Policy, but their raw circulation numbers aren’t that high. So our sense as a staff is the information we’re imparting is of such great importance and so well done, we need to sort of push the boundaries of those rules a little bit. With book publishers, we do really try hard not to reprint from publishers over a certain size. We really try to stick with smaller houses. It’s been that way since the beginning, when I look back at older magazines. Actually believe it or not it’s something we spend a lot of time talking about around here, so if somebody does pitch something from a bigger publication, we really go around and around, trying to decide whether or not to reprint. The standards are higher when we choose to do that.
Steve: Utne Reader has its own library with a full time librarian, right?
David: Yes.
Steve: It’s Danielle Maestretti?
David: Yes, that’s correct.
Steve: Does she simply collect and organize the collection, or does she have a larger role at the magazine?
David: She has a much larger role. Everyone here is a multi-tasker. We put out the magazine really with five people. If you add the art department there’s seven. Danielle is one of those people. Everyone’s involved in planning the magazine, and actually at this magazine in particular, the librarian role is so key because we are sifting through so many publications, and reprinting and repurposing. So Danielle is really one of the key actors in getting the best stuff in front of us. She also does a column for the magazine, where she tries to go out and see how certain stories are being covered in the alternative press. For instance, she did a column about how prison reform is being covered. She did a column about Iraqi refugees. She turns to these smaller publications and tries to tell our readers what they’re missing, or what they could see if they looked that way. One of the ways we work as a group is we meet, we’re a little bit different editorial operation in the sense that we operate really as a democracy. At the end of the day, I have to make some decisions, and some calls in terms of the mix of what goes in the magazine, but we spend a lot of time as a group debating and passing around ideas and Danielle is a key member of that group, as well. I tell people that we’re less like a newsroom environment. I have worked in newsroom environments. We’re less like a newsroom environment and more like a little think tank, because we spend so much time together sifting through all this great information, trying to decide what are the best few things that we can present to our readers each issue.
Steve: I would suspect that Utne Reader’s library has one of the best collections of alternative publications really in the world. Is the collection used for any purposes other than supporting the magazine?
David: It’s open to folks. We’re actually in the process of trying to advertise a little bit more to our local community here in Minneapolis, that they should come use it. But yeah, it’s open to the pubic. Danielle has relationships with a number of people in other libraries where she’ll trade publications. You’ll find that other independent magazines and alternative magazines are aware of the library and will turn to Danielle. So yeah, it’s used more broadly, and I think you’re right, it’s one of the best libraries of its kind. The other thing that Danielle does because we do have limited space, at some point especially with our books we’ll run out of space, and we have to do something with those books. So we have a couple of programs going with public libraries in smaller towns and rural areas. We’ll have librarians come here from greater Minnesota and western Wisconsin and take some of these books back to their communities.
Steve: Tell us about the Utne Independent Press Awards. What are they, and why are they important?
David: Oh, what a great time to ask that. We’re in the midst of picking our nominees. It’s really an intense process. It’s a lot of fun. We feel like in terms of being an ambassador for the independent press, and doing what we can to support smaller publications is really key. These publications really benefit from the recognition, and they use it in their advertising material and circulation material, and they tell us that it helps. The whole idea is that because we do count on these other magazines, really as the intellectual engine for the magazine, we need to point to the best ones each year. We typically have between ten and twelve categories. They shift a little bit from year to year, but they’re fairly consistent. We try to have 8 nominees per category, and that’s usually whittled down from, I’m not exaggerating, 30 or 40 magazines that start in each category. But I think, hopefully for the reader benefit, the pure reader benefit is for people to see them in categories like “politics” and “environmental coverage.” There are magazines and journals that are doing work that’s above and beyond what they’re seeing in the mainstream media, and we want to make sure they know about it, because a lot of this stuff is accessible at their newsstand or bookstore, or they can order these magazines. So we think it’s a great resource for our readers in that regard. For the magazines that we recognize, specifically like I said, I think it’s a good feather in their cap. They get really excited about it. A lot of these folks are toiling away for very little money, or no money at all, and just getting that recognition and getting their name out to our 250,000 readers is a big boost for them, and it just makes us feel good about promoting their work.
Steve: You mentioned “very little money, or no money at all.” I read a lot of dire reports about the financial future of magazines and newspapers. Is the independent press in trouble?
David: Yes, it is. There’s just so much, especially now, it’s just a double whammy, because you have a shift to more readership online, and advertisers not knowing exactly where to go. Then on top of that, nobody’s really come up with a great way to monetize things online, especially editorial content. So that’s tough. Then you add on top of this extreme economic downturn that we’re in the middle of. A number of magazines closed this year. You know, it’s interesting. I’m seeing that some of the bigger magazines in the mainstream media are struggling even more. I’ll try not to get too wonky, but one of the interesting things about that is that bigger magazines like a Time and a Newsweek and a Rolling Stone, their whole economic strategy is built around building up circulation. They get this huge circulation of millions of people, and then they sell that circulation to the advertiser. They say, “Look at all the issues that are out there, here’s the people you’re going to reach.” In some sense, that circulation is false. A lot of that circulation is given away, some of it is purchased. Again, I won’t get too wonky, but there’s all sorts of expensive ways to manipulate that data, and make yourself look really big. The minute that advertising starts to fall off at all, which is what’s happened now, that huge circulation cost really nails these companies. So you see magazines losing tons of money, cutting staff, going away all together. Some of the smaller independent magazines, and magazines like Utne Reader, as well, with a circulation that is around 20-30,000, 50,000, or in the case of some of the bigger magazines like Us and Mother Jones which are in the 100-200,000, it’s a lot of magazines, obviously, but we’re not selling circulation to our advertisers. We’re selling an audience. We’re telling people, “Hey, there may be only 70,000 people reading our magazine, but they’re people who really love the magazine, they go out of their way to buy it.” So you’re seeing some of the smaller magazines are having a little bit better time, assuming they were healthy going in, which is a big assumption. A lot of them are always operating on a shoestring, so any sort of deviation is going to hurt them. In terms of what’s going to happen, it’s really up in the air. It’s a tumultuous, scary, and at the same time sort of interesting period to be in this business, because I think things are going to really shake out in the next 18-24 months in a number of areas in the media—daily newspapers, smaller magazines, bigger magazines, internet, the radio, even television to a certain degree. I think one of the things print media still has going for it is that tactile experience that people enjoy, and the portability. Also it’s one of the few mediums now that are sort of filterless. You know, if you’re watching TV you can use your DVR and skip through commercials. If you’re online, you can set filters. If advertisers want to get an idea or an image in front of people, print is still a way that…you can’t erase a page, you’re at least going to turn by it. So the goal of the advertisers is to catch people’s attention. That might help print media a little bit. I also think you’re going to see more and more magazines like Utne Reader and The Nation and Mother Jones adopt a non-profit or foundation model, so that they can continue to do the hard journalism that’s not necessarily popular with people, or doesn’t build huge audiences, but is really important. As a side note, I’ll just say that outside the realm of publishing and being an editor, as a citizen I have some concerns about what’s happening in the media right now, because the first thing that’s being cut, and the last thing that’s being invested in when things start to go a little bit better is the news gathering operations themselves. That’s really problematic. There’s less and less reporters being paid a living wage to go out and dig up stories. I love the blogosphere and I love citizen journalism, but it’s a very reactive sort of journalism. It’s not an investigative or in depth sort of reporting. You need people out there who can do that, and who can get paid to do that. I worry as a citizen about the quality of our information and where exactly it’s going to come from. If these daily newspapers start to close the way it looks like they’re going to, or really minimize their staffs, a lot of these internet portals and people blogging, at the end of the day they’re depending upon the work that’s coming out of these news rooms. Once that work goes away, I’m going to be curious to see what happens to democracy itself.
Steve: David, you mentioned that Ogden Publications bought Utne Reader in 2006. What was it like for you as editor to make that transition?
David: It was a really intense time. I was at a publication that was purchased and closed several years ago. I was at another publication where ownership changed sort of in the middle of the night. This situation was a friendly purchase. The due diligence process took place over a three month period. Nina Utne and Bryan Welch, the publisher and editorial director that I mentioned before had a great working relationship. They spent a lot of time in each others’ offices, sort of figuring out how to make this work. In terms of just the practical shift, you have all those normal anxieties, like who’s going to keep their job, is the staff going to downsize? What’s really going to happen? What’s really the goal here? Is this company true to our mission? Once I got to know those folks, I was really confident that they believed that our mission squared with theirs. Once the actual shift took place, I have to tell you, you know, it sounds like….I’ve told this to a couple of publications over the last couple of years, and I always preface it by saying I know it sounds like P.R. b.s., but the truth of the matter is I can’t image a smoother transition. I feel really lucky, because in Minneapolis there have been a number of buyouts and closings and shifts in ownership, and a lot of that stuff gets really ugly. This company basically came in and said, “Hey, we really love you guys, we love what you’re doing, we know you’ve really been struggling, so we want to give you some more resources and see if we can make this thing break even and eventually become profitable.” We’re still working on that. But a lot of times when there’s a buyout like this, content gets softer, it gets more generated to please a certain audience, and almost the exact opposite happened here, which was the publisher agreed with us that we need to be challenging, that we need to push the envelope a little bit, that we need to be really true to the spirit of alternative media, which is to be fearless and question things across the spectrum. It’s been pretty amazing. I can tell you that without them, I don’t think we’d be here any more. So it’s just been a really good marriage so far.
Steve: Well, David, on that note we need to conclude.
David: Okay. It’s been great talking to you.
Steve: Thank you very, very much. An individual annual subscription to Utne Reader is $12. Thank you for listening to Periodical Radio. I’m your host, Steve Black.