So. Last week’s Salient existed solely on the internet and now this one is all newsprint, big and kinda from the past. What’s up with that?
Well, a part of the reasoning was framed by our obsessive need for symmetry—following a futuristic digitech Online issue with a cheap, tabloid, newsprint inkity-split Offline issue seemed like too good an idea to not follow through—but the biggest part is couched in our interest in Salient’s future and, by way of that, its past.
Salient’s positioning of itself as more of a magazine than a newspaper is a relatively new move in its life choreography as a publication. It was only in the lateish ‘80s that magazine style features started appearing in these pages. Before that Salient was almost exclusively news-based (dotted with very occasional opinion pieces and comedy gossip items) in its four or eight pages.
As we face an uncertain future both in how journalism in general operates and distributes itself (especially with the recent death of the NZPA, about which there is more on pg. 9) and how Salient specifically is going to be in the future with the great cloak of VSM descending, we need to look at ourselves and really think about how Salient will be in the future. Salient is, in its current-form, not expensive. But, neither is it cheap by any means.
We simply do not know what next year’s editor or editors will be faced with when they sit down to negotiate next year’s budget. Maybe it will be relatively fair sailing or maybe they will be forced to half running costs of Salient. Last week and this week’s issues are here to show ourselves, future Salienteers and you, our audience, what Salient might be like in the future. Or it might not. It might look like it normally does. But on better paper. Or worse paper.
While financial considerations are always pressing on our minds and our way of working, want you want as readers is also incredibly important to us. Tell us what you want Salient to look like in the future. Send us an email or drop in the office for a chat. This is your magazine. It should be in a form you are happy with. So, let us know!
Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we’ll begin,