The Washington Post recently announced the discontinuation of the weekly Washington
Post Magazine. I was a Washington Post subscriber for years, so I would receive
the Sunday paper with the coupons/circulars and the Post Magazine each week. The
magazine was perfect to read during my commute because you had the long-form
stories but also a humor column, brief interviews with a wide variety of
people, restaurant reviews, and more. Date Lab, where Post staff match singles, was part of this more. I read Date Lab to The Moose during potty training and some
of the stories made for fun blog posts. The kids also enjoyed Second Glance
where you try to find differences between two seemingly identical photographs.
The magazine's content was always interesting, and it was easy to carry and
transport to and from work.
After having The Moose and Pedro Tulo and especially after Luigi arrived, I found that I didn’t have time to read the paper on Sundays. In an ideal world, I would love to just sit on the couch on a Sunday morning and read the paper but three kids made this impossible. There were always activities or errands to run or simply playing and spending time with the kids that prevented me from sitting down with the paper. They would just pile up until I recycled the papers at the end of the week. Still, I managed to find time to read the magazine most weeks on my commute. And then I didn’t. Maybe it was reading more books during the commute or doing activities on the phone (including writing blog posts), but the magazines started to pile up too. While I intended to read them, it didn’t happen.
With me not reading the print version of the paper or magazine, I unsubscribed from the print version of The Washington Post. I maintained my online subscription, though I admit that I rarely read The Magazine online. And I should. While Gene Weingarten no longer writes for the magazine, Damon Young (a fellow Pittsburgher!) is an excellent writer with a very different perspective from his predecessor and definitely worth your time (including in his recent column about Kyrie Irving). The Magazine's quality continues to be excellent and relevant. However, I never read the print version anymore and don't often think about checking it out online. There are probably thousands of others like me out there. Maybe that's why The Post is cutting the magazine. Even though 5 of the top 40 most-clicked stories on the website over the past year were produced by the magazine, I'm sure there is some metric out there showing that there aren't enough clicks. For a paper as large and as important as The Post and with an owner in Jeff Bezos with deep pockets, this is unfortunate and disappointing. I feel bad for the people losing their jobs and for the public in missing out on reading outstanding stories.
After having The Moose and Pedro Tulo and especially after Luigi arrived, I found that I didn’t have time to read the paper on Sundays. In an ideal world, I would love to just sit on the couch on a Sunday morning and read the paper but three kids made this impossible. There were always activities or errands to run or simply playing and spending time with the kids that prevented me from sitting down with the paper. They would just pile up until I recycled the papers at the end of the week. Still, I managed to find time to read the magazine most weeks on my commute. And then I didn’t. Maybe it was reading more books during the commute or doing activities on the phone (including writing blog posts), but the magazines started to pile up too. While I intended to read them, it didn’t happen.
With me not reading the print version of the paper or magazine, I unsubscribed from the print version of The Washington Post. I maintained my online subscription, though I admit that I rarely read The Magazine online. And I should. While Gene Weingarten no longer writes for the magazine, Damon Young (a fellow Pittsburgher!) is an excellent writer with a very different perspective from his predecessor and definitely worth your time (including in his recent column about Kyrie Irving). The Magazine's quality continues to be excellent and relevant. However, I never read the print version anymore and don't often think about checking it out online. There are probably thousands of others like me out there. Maybe that's why The Post is cutting the magazine. Even though 5 of the top 40 most-clicked stories on the website over the past year were produced by the magazine, I'm sure there is some metric out there showing that there aren't enough clicks. For a paper as large and as important as The Post and with an owner in Jeff Bezos with deep pockets, this is unfortunate and disappointing. I feel bad for the people losing their jobs and for the public in missing out on reading outstanding stories.
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