I thought you all might enjoy this "rag v. rag" comparison of Skeptic v. Fate. Granted I'm pleased that we get ranked as the higher quality pub., this is hardly worth bragging about considering the comparison subject. And granted that the issue they picked to compare turns out to be one of our more academic and technical issues (with not very many "sexy" subjects of investigation), it does make me wonder if perhaps as editor I need to heed such feedback with some attention and perhaps make changes here and there that, without sacrificing scholarly integrity, will allow us to appeal to a broader audience.
Skeptic's circulation is now about 40,000, including bookstore and newsstand distribution. That's about an order of magnitude higher than most scientific and scholarly journals, but about an order of magnitude smaller than the big boys like Scientific American, Discover, etc.
Please give me your opinion: what changes would you recommend we make in Skeptic magazine to help us reach a wider audience?
To provide some parameters, my concerns are this: if we dumped all references, for example, when we run an original and solid piece of research, such as the one by Brian Siano in the issue at hand, then doesn't that sacrifice scholarly integrity? How is the reader to check on the author's sources? (Or at least feel confident that the author did his or her homework in the research?) If I started cutting articles down from the 5,000-8,000 word range to the 2,000-3,000 word range, how can the author present a complex and subtle argument in such limited space? Color photos are no problem--all we need is color ads to pay for the color pages--does anyone have any suggestions about soliciting advertising? Should we go to a bi-monthly format and shorten the length of each issue by half (still more costly because of two more separate printings and mailings)? If we did that, however, then our special "theme" sections would be radically shorter (leaving me to worry about the intellectual intregrity problem)?
Anything else I'm not considering? What columns/departments, for example, do you most like and dislike? (E.g., Randi's column, the Dumbth news column, News, Forum, special "Theme" sections, books in brief and in review, Jr. Skeptic mag, and that long-winded Shermer guy's essays.)
http://www.salon.com/media/col/shre/1999/08/27/skeptic/index.html
By Jenn Shreve
Aug. 27, 1999 | While the '90s have been remarked upon by many as the Golden Age of Cynicism, I believe the Decade of Credulity is a far more apt characterization. Sure, we of the recently college-educated set can bring a (pick only one) feminist/gay/patriarchal/protozoan perspective to everything from a Pepsi commercial to a mid-century Eames chair, but we also spent the better half of our 20s watching the "X-Files." If our country's media intake is any indicator, Mulder's mantra "I want to believe" has far greater implications than any of us imagined.
Horoscopes, psychics and chat rooms dedicated to "irrefutable" evidence of alien life on planet Earth: These thrive while educational programming falters. Why? Well, people do want to believe. Call me a cynic, but it's also about packaging. It's a lesson easily illustrated by two polar opposite publications. The first is Skeptic Magazine, "Devoted to the Investigation of Extraordinary Claims & Revolutionary Ideas & the Promotion of Science & Critical Thinking." Then there's Fate, "True Reports of the Strange & Unknown."
Skeptic, Vol 7 No. 1 Fate, April 1999 Cover illustration Two puffy-faced scientists with creepy facial expressions Hot vampire chick with blood-stained lips Overall look Page after page of text printed on thick, matte paper. Articles followed by hard to read footnotes. A few grainy photos. Big, crazy fonts. Glossy pages. Color photos of movie stars, people with fangs, gigantic bugs and charred blimps. Cover story Fraud and Science: Reflections on the Baltimore Case" "ReVamped: Vampires are a hot topic today ... But what's life really like behind the media masquerade?" Conspiracy scoop PR firms creating faux nonprofits Bar codes! Harmful disrupters of electromagnetic fields! Bigfoot article The "Patterson film" of Bigfoot finally exposed as a hoax How to tell a real Bigfoot from "Anthropoid Pseudo-Sasquatch Entities" Personality profile Carol Tarvis, social scientist and feminist author: "I think the rise of spiritual movements today reflects not just a hunger for God, but for the kind of community connection that religion has traditionally provided." Jing, psychic parrot: "I like to talk to other birds because they understand me as a bird. I also like to talk to cats."
Let's face it, Skeptic is the quality rag of the two, despite a troubling number of copy-editing errors. And despite the bland design and overly academic headlines, it's an engrossing read. But which one is going to jump out at you from the patchwork of glossies at your local bookstore? Fate, of course. I am not suggesting they dress up Richard Dawkins in a boa and leather chaps for an eye-popping centerfold, but Gillian Anderson does play a skeptic on TV. Why not add a little star wattage to the editorial lineup? Some would argue such a move would cheapen Skeptic's high-falutin' purpose and standards. But if its contributors are truly as fed up with the "credulists" as they claim, then some "ReVamping" is in order.