Even Revolver , a music magazine, has a sex issue. American Woman , which is sold in grocery stores, gives you 12 new sex positions to achieve orgasm. Oddly enough, Husni says the Internet is actually helping all magazines except the sex category, not least because magazines have found a way to sell advertising and most Internet sites have not. A magazine will be fine as long as it has a willing audience who can afford the price of the magazine and of the advertised goods, he says. The biggest myth in our business is the so-called separation of church and state.
Readers buy magazines just as much for the advertising.
Somewhat comforted about the future of print journalism by my visit to Oxford, I went to the Memphis public library the next morning to have a look at the past. The biggest difference between then and now, though, was not the headlines, the datelines, or the editorial opinions. It was the advertising. Whether gambling has replaced shopping as a pastime is an interesting question. But there is no doubt that casinos have replaced department stores as an advertising bastion.