THEY’RE FIXIN’ TO CHANGE YOUR MIND

—

The people behind The Bitter Southerner are many things but they are not, they will remind you, actually bitter. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek here. But The Bitter Southerner is, for sure, like it says on the website, “a beacon for the American South and a bellwether for the nation.”

Sure, why not.

But what started out as an ambitious e-newsletter has evolved now into a … project. Read The Bitter Southerner and you realize how ambitious and radical their business—and message—truly is. This is not just a brand but a movement, a way to talk about the South and Southern things, but through a lens many of us, through our own biases and ignorance, won’t quite see.

And the world is listening. Stories from The Bitter Southerner have either won or been nominated for eight James Beard Awards. And now they are up for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

We spoke to co-founder Kyle Tibbs Jones about the genesis of the magazine, about what it means, about the community it has found and spawned, and about the future, not just of the brand but, maybe, of the South, and where The Bitter Southerner fits into it all.

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

MAKE IT BIG. NO BIGGER

—

Paula Scher is not really a “magazine person.”

But if you ever needed evidence of the value of what we like to call “magazine thinking,” look no further than Pentagram, the world’s most influential design firm. The studio boasts a roster of partners whose work is rooted in magazine design: Colin Forbes, David Hillman, Kit Hinrichs, Luke Hayman, DJ Stout, Abbott Miller, Matt Willey, and, yes, today’s guest.

Paula has been a Pentagram partner since 1991. She’s an Art Director’s Club Hall of Famer—and AIGA Medalist. She has shaped the visual landscape for iconic brands—Coca-Cola, Citibank, Tiffany, and Shake Shack—always with her instinctive understanding of how typography, design, and storytelling come together.

In other words, she plays the same game we do.

In 1993, Paula collaborated with Janet Froelich on a redesign of The New York Times Magazine and built a platform for pioneering editorial innovation that continues to this day. In 1995, she helped me break down Fast Company’s editorial mission, in her own distinctively reductive way: “It’s about the ideas, not the people,” she said. It was a game-changer.

But Paula isn’t just a design legend—she’s also a complete badass.

Starting out at a time when the industry was still predominantly male, Paula carved out space for herself by fighting for it. Her work at CBS and Atlantic Records redefined album cover design. Later, her rebranding for cultural institutions like The Public Theater and the Museum of Modern Art helped cement the importance of an unforgettable identity system for any organization.

And, as a longtime educator at New York’s School of Visual Arts, Paula has molded generations of designers who have gone on to shape the industry in their own ways—including our very own Debra Bishop.

We spoke to Paula upon the launch of her new, 500-plus page monograph, Paula Scher: Works.

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

WTF IS AFM?

—

Feeld is a dating app “for the curious” and its users are an adventurous, thoughtful bunch. And Feeld is also a tech company that happens to be led by thoughtful long-term types who see the value in print as a cornerstone for their community of customers. Enter A Fucking Magazine.

Led by editors Maria Dimitrova and Haley Mlotek, AFM is a cultural magazine about sex that is also not about sex. Maybe it’s about everything. Or maybe my old lit prof in college was right and everything really is about sex. The first issue of the magazine is out and it demands attention because it is beautiful and smart and literate. And also because it feels like something new.

Discussions about AFM also lead to discussions about custom publishing: There is no hiding Feeld in the pages of AFM. All of the money behind the magazine is from Feeld, and half the contributors are also users of the app. Customers, in other words.

As someone who came out of the custom world, I have long said the best custom media were the products of brands that were confident and forward thinking; when a brand saw itself more as patron and less as custodian. Meaning they didn’t get overly involved.

Luckily, the higher ups at Feeld are relatively hands off, and allow Maria and Haley to do their thing. Which is very fucking smart.

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

THE WINNER

—

Clang! Clink! Bang! Hear that? It’s the sound of all the hardware that Jake Silverstein’s New York Times Magazine has racked up in his almost eleven years at its helm: Pulitzers and ASMEs are heavy, people!

When we were preparing to speak to Jake, we reached out to a handful of editors who have loyally worked with him for years to find out what makes him tick. They describe an incredible and notably drama-free editor who fosters an amazing vibe and a lover of both literary essay and enterprise reporting who holds both an MA and an MFA. As one New York Times Mag story editor put it, Jake’s superpower is his “vigorous and institutionally-shrewd support of skilled reporters with strong voices pursuing projects that were just a little beyond the paper’s ordinary comfort zone.”

Here’s a theory we set out to test in this interview—one that we’ve floated in our newsletter, The Spread, for years now: Is The New York Times Magazine the best women’s magazine out there?

Yes, we’re talking about the stories they produce under Jake, like Susan Dominus’s ASME-winning, game-changing story about menopause and hormone replacement therapy, and Linda Villarosa’s feature shining a light on the Black maternal health crisis.

But we’re also talking about the woman-loaded top of the Times Mag masthead, on which Gail Bichler, Jessica Lustig, Sasha Weiss, Ilena Silverman, and Adrienne Greene reign supreme—and seriously outnumber their male counterparts.

And we could spend all day name checking favorite writers, like Dominus and Villarosa, but also Emily Bazelon, Danyel Smith, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Irina Aleksander, Jordan Kisner, Azmat Khan, Pam Colloff, Nikole Hannah-Jones, J Wortham, Wesley Morris. We could go on and on—you get the idea!

So, did Jake agree with our women’s mag theory? And what is it like to have the deep resources it takes to make these kinds of stories these days? You’ll have to listen to find out.

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

THE HEART OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

—

There’s a saying about the Velvet Underground’s first album: it didn’t sell a lot of copies but everyone who bought it went on to form a band. Not everyone who read Creem went on to form a band, but almost everyone who ever wrote about rock music in a significant way has a connection to Creem.

Founded in Detroit in 1969 by Barry Kramer, Creem was a finger in the eye to the more established Rolling Stone. Creem called itself “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine” and its cheeky irreverence matched its devotion to its infamous street cred. Punk, new wave, heavy metal, alternative, indie were all championed at Creem.

Writers and editors who worked for Creem read like a who’s who of industry legends: Lester Bangs. Dave Marsh. Robert Christgau. Greil Marcus. Patti Smith. Cameron Crowe. Jann Uhelszki. Penny Valentine. And on and on and on.

The magazine stopped publishing in 1989 a few years after Barry’s death. A documentary about Creem’s heyday in 2020 helped lead to a resurrected media brand, founded by JJ Kramer, Barry’s son, and launched in 2022. The copy on the first issue’s cover: “Rock is Dead. So is Print.”

Totally typical Creem-assed fuckery. And still totally rock n roll, man.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

FARM-TO-NEWSSTAND PUBLISHING

—

The pandemic screwed a lot of businesses over, but it did a real number on the restaurant industry. Beset by low margins at the best of times, Covid was to the business what a neglected pot of boiling milk is to your stove top. But Max Meighen, a restaurant owner in Toronto decided to fill in his down time by … creating a magazine. Because of course he did.

And so he cooked up Serviette, a magazine about food that feels and looks and reads unlike any other food title around.

Nicola Hamilton came on as Creative Director soon thereafter. She had worked for a number of Canadian titles and during Covid, founded Issues Magazine Shop, one of Canada’s—if not the world’s—leading independent magazine shops. Because of course she did.

Food magazines, like all media, have gone through a lot recently, and the changes wrought by digital media have been amplified by Influencers, TikTokers, Instagram recipe makers, Substackers, bloggers, you name it. The food industry is ruthless and not for the weak. And I think you’ll find that both Max and Nicola are anything but. They are, quite simply, Master Chefs.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

NOT THE SAFE CHOICE

—

Most magazines are not political. Unless, that is, you create a bilingual Arabic-English language magazine about design out of Beirut. Or another bilingual magazine about women and gender—also out of Beirut. Then, perhaps, your intentions are a bit less opaque.

Maya Moumne is a Lebanese designer by training who now divides her time between Beirut and Montréal. She is the editor and co-creator of Journal Safar and Al Hayya, two magazines that attempt to capture the breadth and diversity of what we inaccurately—monolithically—call “the Arab World.” Both magazines are also examples of tremendous design and, frankly, bravery.

The subject-matter on display here means the magazines have limited distribution in the very region they cover—which is both ironic and the exact reason the magazines exist. That both have also been noticed and fêted by magazine insiders in the West is perhaps also something worth celebrating.

Maya Moumne is a designer. Of the possibilities for a better and more inclusive future for everyone, everywhere.

[Production note: This conversation was recorded prior to the violence in Lebanon. We send our best wishes to the staff of Journal Safar and Al Hayya and hope they are safe. And mostly we wish for a peaceful future for all.]

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

CHAMPION OF A BETTER FUTURE

—

Wired magazine feels like it’s been around forever. And perhaps these days any media that has been around for over 30 years qualifies as forever.

It has, certainly, been around during the entirety of the digital age. It has been witness to the birth of the internet, of social media, of cellphones, and of AI. It feels like an institution as well as an authority for a certain kind of subject. But what is that subject? Because Wired is not just a tech publication. It never was.

Katie Drummond is the editorial director of Wired, a position she has held for just over a year. This job is the closing of a circle in a sense, because her first job in media was as an intern at Wired. She has worked almost exclusively in digital media since, for a range of outfits—many of them shuttered—proof of the vagaries and the reality of media in the digital age.

At Wired Drummond oversees a robust digital presence, including video, the print publication, as well as Wired offices in places like Italy, Mexico, and Japan. She says that Wired “champions a better future” … meaning Wired seems like the publication of the moment, in many ways, at the intersection of tech, culture, politics, and the environment.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025