It allows us to compete with the daily print media on breaking news, but also gives us time to add context, depth and perspective to important stories that get only superficial treatment in the dailies. It was nice, of course, to be relieved of deadline pressure every other week during the last six. Readers seemed to appreciate the bigger magazines, delivered half as often, because they didn't pile up at home unread while the family was away from home. If we had to publish fortnightly all the time, we would inevitably become more analytical and less newsy. There would be fewer exclusives because the dailies would inevitably stumble across them while we were waiting for our presses to roll.
Competition is the juice that drives the best reporters and editors.
Their egos thrive on developing ideas and discovering things no one else knows and getting the information to print or on the air ahead of the pack. They feel it most acutely if they work in daily print or broadcast media, but even those who work for monthly or quarterly publications must produce original thinking or new information to compete in the news business. History is littered with failed writers and defunct publications who thought people would buy and read their stuff simply because it was elegantly written and prettily packaged. You will notice there are two major stories in this week's magazine that satisfy our competitive instincts and your desire for information you get nowhere else. Our other major story has appeared no where else that we know of.