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Rock Magazine - new ed 17-Feb-2012 At 12:34:43 PM will5686

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On 14/02/2012 Damo666 wrote:
>On 14/02/2012 shortman wrote:
>>Your all being too harsh. I thought it was a great first up effort.
>
>OK then, says the person who misspells 'you're'! ;-)
>
>Alpinist magazine, always financially marginal itself, recently shredded
>their whole print run because of one small typo on the cover. It's about
>doing the job right. If you can't get the basic stuff right - on two editions
>of two separate mags in a row - how will you* handle the hard stuff?
>
>Mind you, the not-so-recent cover of Wild (Rock?) with the made-up name
>'Peruvian Alps' was abysmal, so Ross was not immune either. I was certainly
>no fan of Chris Baxter, but I don't remember any cover bombs like those.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>*to Mr. Rock Ed - just being harsh cos' it's the internet :) Good luck
>and hope to see things improve.
>

I was really critical of mistakes in publishing, until I became a deputy editor myself. Then I realised that you can absolutely wreck yourself trying to make sure that none slip through — yet they still do! You can read something ten times but not see the mistake until it is sitting on your desk in the magazine. Another pair of eyes always sees things that you don't, which is why we have sub-editors and editorial assistants and so forth. But magazine circulation is down over 5% in the last six months alone (according to the Australia Bureau of Circulation), so budgets are getting smaller, staff are getting paid less, contributors are getting paid less, and quality is necessarily going to go down.

As for him not being a climber, that's a problem. But if he immerses himself in the culture and is really careful to triple check all the climbing info in the articles, then he should learn more quickly than most new climbers. Who else can write off climbing guides, gear and time spent on forums as work expenses? And if he wants to get out on some rock and fiddle with knots I would be happy to take him climbing with me, as I am sure are most other people on this forum.

If we want a great climbing mag then we have to send in our expert stories and awesome pictures, tell them what gear we want reviewed, and just generally give them as much feedback as we can. CRUX was arguably the best magazine in the history of the world, and it was built on the back of real climbers' contributions. Rock can be the same, they just need that same level of community support, regardless of who the editor is.

Good luck new Mr. Rock, and if you want a deputy editor who is a climber, photographer and writer and who works on an outdoor/camping mag send me a PM - I could definitely put all that tester gear through the ringer for you :)

Claire