Can't say I did not warn you last September with an odds of survival rate of 10%.
If you are a Sunday newspaper reader, between the piles and piles of Best Buy brochures and shopping coupon inserts, you may have happened to have found a thin Sunday weekly called Life magazine.
With two stalwarts already stuffed in Sunday papers -- Parade and USA Weekend -- Life was last to the game and never really caught traction. It lost tons of money, which is never good if you are part of Time Inc. nowadays.
Frankly, when you are closing a title, I do not understand why in the same memo, Time Inc. president Ann Moore says: "LIFE enjoyed strong consumer support. Research showed readers consistently placed it above its competitors in terms of quality edit and photography." I guess she had to say something nice because "quality edit and photography" doesn't make a business.
So down it goes, one more time, and who knows when it will rear its head again when it's convenient for Time Inc.?
Good riddance!
Posted by: Beerzie | June 11, 2007 at 09:19 PM
Such a shame LIFE has once again ceased publication. But this was never a good venue for this once venerable, periodical institution that was for many years a fixture on the coffee tables of American homes and the waiting room racks of doctors' offices, just as was its once vibrant competitor, LOOK.
I hope one day both LIFE and LOOK will resurface as bi-monthly, monthly or seasonal publications, with the beautiful photos and photo essays for which they were both well noted.
For you younger Internet users--there was a time when LIFE and LOOK were as well regarded, their combined circulations making them as big as are PEOPLE and TIME today (though granted, one must concede the glory days of periodicals and newspapers are history, many publications on the verge of folding or being absorbed in mergers, as more people rely upon the Internet and television for their news and information).
Such renowned photojournalists as Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, James Karales, Gordon Parks, and A. Stanley Tretick were all award-winning shutterbugs for these once giants of the periodical industry, their photographs frequently making history with their collective lenses.
Even the late & legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was once a staff photographer for LOOK, before evolving toward his Oscar-winning film career.
Though I realize the best days of periodicals are behind them, I think there will always be at least a small number of the very best magazines surviving. And that's because there's just something special about those great articles, and beautiful and brilliant images on glossy pages that don't come off quite the same, no matter how portable cellphones and laptops have made the portability of media possible.
Posted by: Jim M. | October 08, 2008 at 11:23 PM