Book Review: The Art of Making Magazines: On Being an Editor and Other Views from the Industry, by Victor S. Navasky and Evan Cornog (Eds.)

Abstract

Victor S. Navasky and Evan Cornog (Eds.). The Art of Making Magazines: On Being an Editor and Other Views from the Industry. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. 179 pp.This is a collection of twelve lectures directed to graduate students in a magazine concentration at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism from 2002 to 2010. The goal of the lectures, according to the authors, is to provide into the world of magazines by way of the perspectives of those who write, publish, edit, and design them. The speakers are some of the biggest names in the magazine world from the past 30 years, among them John Gregory Dunne, Tina Brown, Ruth Reichl, and Michael Kelly.The content of the twelve chapters deals with writing for magazines (one chapter), the editors' perspective (six chapters), copyediting and fact checking (two chapters), dealing with art directors (one chapter), and publishers' perspective (two chapters).Columbia is uniquely situated for such a lecture series as it can draw on the wealth of local talent from the very top of the magazine profession-people who have been movers, shakers, and decision makers at some of the most significant magazines of the twentieth century. These include the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Gourmet, Elle, New York, and others. The Art of Making Magazines, according to the authors, is not a how-to book, but a how-to-think-about-it book (p. viii). It is not a step-by-step manual for creating a magazine, but rather a collection of tips and advice about the politics, philosophies, ethics, and battles involved in the high stakes business of large magazines. Another analogy used by the authors in describing the is that of a quilt of perspectives and backgrounds (p. viii).Like any collection of lectures, the is indeed a crazy quilt in that the chapters could stand alone; however, they are linked by certain threads. Given that the speakers are top professionals from elite magazines speaking to students in an elite program, weighty emphasis is placed on the value of magazine journalism practiced at this level. Many of the lecturers fill their comments with war stories about their experiences get- ting into the business and making their way up the ladders of staff boxes, moving from one big magazine to another. They tell name-dropping anecdotes and detail their strug- gles in the service of publishing the very best writers. But a certain amount of this is to be expected from such a collection of professionals, and most of the stories are exceptionally well told. These are after all, writers and editors. Many worked on mag- azines during the 1970s, '80s, and '90s and recall a sense of romance about the vitality and excitement of creating a product put together with style and verve.In every chapter, however, there is some special insight or some particular word of inspiration or caution that is a valuable take-away, no matter the reader's level of writing, editing, or publishing. John Gregory Dunne, for example, whose piece is the first and the longest in the book, stresses the importance of the writer's voice, developed from his or her own background. …