Can’t anyone around here run a magazine?
Really, that’s not a rhetorical question. Because from what we can see, no one does it well. And these haphazard, low-rent publications that are infecting our region hurt us just as much as a bad virus hurts a body.
Hartford is a vibrant, complex city. The Greater Hartford region is rich in history. We have young entrepreneurs building incredible new companies. We have big, old defense contractors enmeshed in the politics of the nation. We have amazing arts institutions, rife with tales of intrigue and plots of conquest. We have incredible architecture, and abysmal city governors. Campuses of higher learning, where some of the most important offices aren’t full of students, but full of people begging the very rich for money.
Oh, the amazing tales of the wealthy, the connected, the local elite. And the contrasting tales of the disenfranchised, the poor, the struggle for survival. We are affluent in capital, both financial and intellectual. We’re smart, and fun, and complex. We’re achievers and connivers.
We’re interesting. So why aren’t the magazines that purport to be about us?
Last week, Life Publications took over the rights to produce Hartford Magazine. The deal has a twisted complexity to it. Now there are going to be a couple of publishers. And a whole lot more salespeople. And a plan to take a paid publication free, nearly double its circulation to 80,000 (but not to any of those poor people in Hartford who could use a free subscription), then somehow eventually re-convert those recipients to paid subscribers again. They’ve also got to figure out a way to rake in north of $100,000 in advertising a month.
So far, that’s been a pretty elusive number. Hartford Magazine’s current publisher wouldn’t be licensing away its flagship if it was earning its keep. Life’s Christopher White has been very smart building feel-good monthly newspapers for specific towns, but even he couldn’t make his omnibus Connecticut Life newspaper work. Does putting together two failing publications make for a winning combination?
Let’s be honest. Connecticut Life was boring. And Hartford Magazine has absolutely nothing compelling about it. It has a few articles of passing interest, but mostly it comes across as wrapper for program guides to wine festivals and home shows. Neither publication is really about our region, about our people. Not in any way that’s worth investing time, much less money.
Meanwhile, the Hartford Courant and the Hartford Advocate made a big marketing push behind their new glossy, CT Slant – a magazine, they said in their editor’s note, that they would want to read. Really? An article that discovers Christina Aguilera can sing, that Norah Jones fights for continued relevance, all wrapped in event listings that can be found already in the Advocate, the Courant, and multiple Web sites? The premier cover story is about the discovery of an artsy, childless yuppie couple who bought a fixer-upper in Hartford, as though that hasn’t been happening for decades. Tell us a story about conservative white parents who move into the city and put their three high-achieving kids into the Hartford school system, and then you’ve got a grabber.
These city magazines are simply pallid publications. They don’t even shine much brighter than the limpid, truly awful Living In West Hartford and Living In the Valley magazines.
Hartford deserves a good magazine that reflects its richness. Perhaps Hartford Magazine and CT Slant can make a financial go of it. But words don’t improve just because they’re on glossy paper. These publications won’t really be a part of Hartford’s story until they start learning how to tell Hartford stories.
