The Future of {Urban} Magazine's: Thoughts on Jeff Chang's Vibe Roundtable

Last week, Jeff Chang posted a roundtable discussion with
Alan Light, former Editor in Chief at Vibe and Raymond Roker,
Founder of Urb Magazine.

Read the entire post here. It is fascinating because in many ways
it is an organic conversation about journalism, capitalism, Vibe,
and venture capital.

5 paragraphs in, Jeff gets cooking when he writes,

But by April 2005, they folded. The magazine industry had shifted dramatically. The middle–as in all media and entertainment industries, hell, in American society–could not hold

The idea of the middle not holding, and for the magazine industry
as an analogy for American, and Global society, if you will, is
fascinating. Initially, last week, when I wrote about class, race
and teens online I was going to include a chart about class distinctions.
It became clear to me that there is no such thing as a middle class.
There are owners. There are workers. The material difference is
in salaries, and unions.

That's it.

Which brings me back to magazines. Last March, I told S.bot
that Honey Magazine was relaunching as a social networking
website. (Background, I love magazines. My dad got me a Barbie
magazine subscription when I was 6. I also had a subscription to
Highlights and Weekly Reader.)

You see, S.bot is a start up genius. She does venture capital
marketing analysis and makes wireframes for billionaires,
so when she talks about businesses, marketing and money, I listen.

She pointed out to me that many magazines now have in house
marketing, record labels and publishing companies, and that the
magazines are just business cards for many companies.
We began to discuss, how Honey would have been different if they
started a marketing arm right after the launch.

We wondered how feasible this would have been given the way in
which whiteness, blackness and gender impacts the access to
capital in general and specifically in the NYC media and
marketing landscape.

Which brings me to Jeff Chang's comment about magazines and
marketing. Jeff writes,

Jeff Chang at 10:56am July 1
Alan, is there any middle ground at all to be found? Is it possible
to concoct a web/print model that can diversify income beyond
ad/sponsor revenues? E.g. For what it’s worth, and forgetting
how I feel about it for a second, most of the mags I know in the
high10K/low100k circ realm have become quasi- or real marketing
agencies.

Then Jeff adds,

Jeff Chang at 11:04am July 1
I guess I think of magazines like URB, The Fader, and Juxtapoz, and Swindle as businesses that are working. But again, there are a number of ancillary units working there aside from the content work. All of them have massive marketing arms. Juxtapoz is part of the Upper Playground clothing/street art business. Swindle is part of Shepard Fairey’s empire.

But yeah, media qua media? Not so much…

Alan Light at 11:07am July 1
if anyone sees this who works with any of those, please chime in. but my understanding is that the magazine parts of those companies do not make money – but rather are a good investment in terms of visibility. as a kind of calling card for the rest of the operation where the profits are. Raymond? Andy? You guys out there?

This blew my brain back because, it became clear that "Hip Hop journalism"
in many ways is now about consumption. That being said, if Hip Hop or
music journalism isn't about the journalism, and is a calling card
for a corporation, where is the journalism?

Remember The Source, the Mind Squad and The Source's
masthead? At one point, it stated,

We at The Source take very seriously the challenge being the
only independent voice for the rap industry...with respect to any
of our businesses relationships, we feel it is in our responsibility to
always strict police the integrity of our editorial content. On y in this
way can we continue to bring of the clear and unbiased coverage which
has won the respect of our readers.

Clearly this was pre-Benzino and The Almighty RSO.

In some ways, reading this roundtable, I felt like I was back in Mergers
in Acquisitions (M & A), because the conversation about magazines
turned into one about profits, venture capital, risk assessment,
parent companies and subsidiaries.

For example, Al Roker spoke on the fact that these businesses
that have both ad agencies and magazines may drop the
magazine completely. He writes,

Raymond Leon Roker at 11:32am July 1
The ways us smaller print brands have a chance is to become boutique agencies. Filter, Cornerstone/Fader, BPM, et al, everybody is in the agency game. The magazines become the branded company pitch. A measure of credibility and clout.

But as print continues to melt away, in the eyes of clients and under the weight of constantly increasing production costs, some of these brands may drop their mags too.

The assumption is that magazine brands, if they walk away from print, can’t survive. That hasn’t been proven one way or another yet. But IMO, the only way they will is by becoming media marketing companies instead. Ones where content and marketing blur (hello ASME). But the standalone magazine model died years ago.

After this comment, Jeff and Alan began having a conversation about
Vibes uniqueness, regarding readership. This, is where M & A comes in.

Jeff Chang at 11:46am July 1
And I note the irony of looking at VIbe as ‘ethnic media’ when the urban category was invented by Black marketers and other marketers of color to get beyond that box…

Alan Light at 11:51am July 1
First, publishing is a terrible place for VCs to be, the return is too slow and too gradual. And are there other examples of consolidation other than Vibe/Spin?

And FYI, I don’t know how these numbers developed over the years, but in the years I was at Vibe it was amazing how close a 50/50 split we had in black/white and in male/female readership. Which was a bit of a problem until sales team were able to convince people it was a strength.

Jeff Chang at 11:58am July 1
Re: that’s so telling on the ad tip. And so when Wicks Group bought Vibe the writing was on the wall?

Alan Light at 12:00pm July 1
who knows? i mean, i guess there was cause for concern if, as i said, no magazine companies wanted in. i can’t comment on the state of things as of time of sale, long after i was gone.

Vibe was unique because of its readership, however, I never thought
about the fact that advertisers may not know how to market to
such a diverse crowd. It speaks to our history as a segregated
society, and the history of segregated publications and advertising as well.

Andy Cohn, group publisher of the Fader Media Network, posted a comment
in the comments section that made me think about venture capitalist and
the lack of profitbilty in the magazine industry. He writes,

andy cohn says:

July 1, 2009 at 12:33 pm

VC’s have no business (never have) getting involved in the media business. there is a long trail of INCREDIBLE media properties (or ones that had the potential for greatness) left in the dust by VC’s who thought they’d get some great rate of return on their investment. When i first started at Spin magazine in 1994, i remember reading that the average print magazine took up to 10 years to turn a profit. i’m by no means a financial wizard (just opposite in fact) BUT that would send some red flags to me if i was the one calling shots on who to invest with or not.

I think if we all really did the research, it’s NOT solely about the magazine or the content that drives it’s success, it’s about the OWNERSHIP structure, and willingness to cultivate and organically grow a property.

So, and i mean NO disrespect, because i have had the good fortune to meet Quincy, and admire and respect him tremendously, i find it perplexing that he can come out and bash the VC’s for ‘messing up’ VIBE when it was HE that sold it to them in the first place. if VIBE had been maintained by the great people that started it and came in along the way, and it remained with Quincy/Bob Miller etc, i have no doubt we would NOT be talking about it’s closure today.

FULL DISC: i have worked for Spin/Vibe, The Source and have been Group Publisher of The FADER Media network for the past 6 years.

Organic growth is the complete anthesis of Capitalism.

Capitalism's central premise is accumulation, get money,
getting more, allways, regardless of the costs.

Even though I will be be a social science doctoral candidate in the fall,
the M & A hound in me loves analyzing why a merged business will
succeed or fail, A merger in many ways is a marriage of two businesses,
and it is often done for the purposes of saving money. We read in the
news that that Live Nation with Ticket Master. Jobs are slashed, buildings
are sold, stock goes up, shareholders are happy.

But, but, but, what is the impact of those actions for the long term?

Ask Umair, who wrote an interesting piece recently about the "bloodsucking
nature" of the music business in the case of Michael Jackson. He writes,

If the world's biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from
his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where
did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels'
pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made
Britney and Lady GaGa.

It can be for a plethora of reasons. This conversation about VIBE is
important because it reflects the magazine industry and also because
of my personal investment in Danyel Smith's career.

The end of Vibe was personal for me, not because of the magazine
per se, but because I have followed Danyel's career since the early nineties,
when she was in the the Bay writing about Hip Hop. While there are
five or six newspapers and alterantive weeklies in the Bay Area,
very few of them, then and now, feature writing by African American women.

So when she wrote about the Boom and the Bap in the SF Bay
Guardian, and the East Bay Express, I stayed looking for her byline.
When I ran into Danyel in NY, a few years ago she was kind and warm.
Furthermore, she encouraged me to write and blog, which was affirming.
Last December, i mentioned to her, that I was writing a series
of essay's on Hip Hop and feminism, and that I was shook. She asked
me why, and I responded that I was scared of failure and scared of success.
She encouraged me to press "send", always.

In some ways I am not thinking about Vibe per se, but the symbolism
of a Black woman, who came up the ranks as a writer, who
eventually ran magazine, and what it means to us, when that
magazine is no longer running.

It's like that feeling of seeing Michelle and Oprah on the cover
of O, when you know Oprah don't share the cover with nobody.

With that being said, who knows what the future holds?

If the magazines, as we know them fall away, and start over digital,
I smile at the idea of an Urban Vanity Fair. Given the fact that we
have a Black president, it would be kinda awesome to have some
in depth, urban (Black, White, Asian and Latino) political and music
coverage, organically grown.

More about VIBE
Harry Allen
Belle in Brooklyn
Aliya S. King

More about Money, Art, Technology
Michael Jackson and the Zombie Media Economy
The Next 5000 Days of the Internet
The Future of Free

When Magazines Sell Access to Politicians, Lobbyist
The Atlantic
The Washington Post

Gentrification has Nothing to do with White Hipsters

Photo I Took Last Year of Banner on Valencia Street
Addressing Mission District Gentrification

Last year, it took me roughly six weeks to earn $5,800.
This is significant because during the late
eighties and early nineties my mother received
public assistance, subsequently she and I lived off of
$5,800 for an entire year.

Yes, $5,800 per year.

Given these facts, last year, I thought a lot about the ways
in which I could personally serve as a gentrifying
factor in my hometown of Oakland, California.
Often times, in popular media, there is very little talk of
gentrification, or if there is, it is discussed in vague terms,
such as"those hipsters are moving in" or "those
white people are moving in" or "this area is becoming nicer."

Gentrification has very little to do with white hipsters
moving into the 'hood and everything to do with process of people
who earn higher incomes moving into neighborhoods
where folks reside who are earning comparatively lower incomes.

If I am a Black women, in Bed-stuy, East Oakland or the South
Side of Chicago, and I earn $60K per year and I am willing to
pay $1000 for an apartment that everyone else, who earns
between $10-15K/year, pays $500 per month, then I am
serving as a force of gentrification in this neighborhood. It bears
being stated that I in may ways I am a gentrifying force in the
same way that a white person earning $60K who moves into
the same community.

What becomes pivotal is my willingness to be engaged with the community
that I have moved into.

A more sustainable, honest and
comprehensive conversation about gentrification would
involve a discussion of the income of the gentrifiers
and not just the race of the gentrifiers.

Wikipedia defines gentrification as,

...the change in an urban area associated with the movement of more affluent individuals into a lower-class area. The area experiences demographic shifts, including an increase in the median income, a reduction in household size, and often a decline in the proportion of racial minorities (if such minorities are present). More households with higher incomes result in increased real estate values with higher associated rent, home prices, and property taxes. Industrial land use can decline with redevelopment bringing more commercial and residential use. Such changes often result in transformation of the neighborhood's character and culture.

Most of what I understand about gentrification is derived
from brilliant scholar and professor at City University New York,
Neil Smith.

Professor's Smith scholarship is meaningful because he discusses
gentrification not only as it pertains to urban communities
but also on a global scale. In an interview with Jens Sambale,
Volker Eick of Policing Crowds, Smith writes,

Early examples of gentrification might include the Islington area of London or Greenwich Village in Manhattan but by the 1970s there were many recorded cases of gentrification in Europe, North America and Australia. In Berlin, early examples of gentrification were recorded in Schöneberg and Kreuzberg, among other neighbourhoods, but the fall of the Berlin Wall released a huge stock of housing that had undergone considerable disinvestment, leading to a widespread gentrification of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte.

Professor Smith's general premise is that gentrification is a natural
feature of capitalism. If the goal capitalism is both the endless accumulation
of capital and the extraction of all possible profit from a piece of property,
then it makes sense that once a neighborhood becomes more desirable
it will then be sold to the highest bidder.

Smith goes on to explain the nuances of gentrification when he writes,

Gentrification occurs in urban areas where prior disinvestment in the urban infrastructure creates urban neighborhoods that can be profitably redeveloped. In its earliest form, gentrification affected decaying working class neighbourhoods close to urban centers where middle and upper middle class people colonized or re-colonized the area, leading to the displacement and eviction of existing residents. The central mechanism behind gentrification can be thought of as a 'rent gap'. When neighborhoods experience disinvestment, the ground rent that can be extracted from the area declines meaning lower land prices. As this disinvestment continues, the gap between the actual ground rent in the area and the ground rent that could be extracted were the area to undergo reinvestment becomes wide enough to allow that reinvestment to take place. This rent gap may arise largely through the operation of markets, most notably in the United States, but state policies can also be central in encouraging disinvestment and reinvestment associated with gentrification. But only wealthier people are able to afford the costs of this renewed investment. Integral with these economic shifts are social and cultural shifts that change the kinds of shops, facilities and public spaces in a neighbourhood.

After reading this, I thought word? Gentrification in West Oakland
and East Germany? Rent Gaps? All of this brought me back to San
Francisco and the film Medicine for Melancholy.

The process of gentrification and the impact that it is having on African
Americans is a central aspect of the film Medicine of Melancholy.
In some ways, Jo, one of the main character's in the movie, has
a sense of entitlement with regard to living in San Francisco.

San Francisco is the largest urban city with the smallest Black population.

Jo's rationale is that he shouldn't have to be middle class to live in
San Francisco. There is nothing wrong with a sense of entitlement.
Entitlement compels people to act , to change the world. However,
given the systematic removal of African Americans from San Francisco, I was
curious about the intersection of entitlement and the history
of African Americans in this city.

In the book, Black San Francisco, Albert Broussard describes
how San Francisco has always resisted the presence of African
Americans, how historically San Francisco has upheld racist policies
towards African Americans.

By an large, African Americans came to the Bay Area during
WWII to work in the shipping yards and other war time jobs, however they
found that after the war, the game changed. Broussard writes,

The question of whether blacks were qualified was not an issue,
but whether or not private business and industry would break long-standing
precedent and integrate their work forces in the absence of statutory
pressure or coercion from the local, state, or federal government. Fearing
low employee morale and adverse public opinion, many companies were reluctant to integrate. Others were satisfied to hire black workers only for menial labor.

According to Broussard, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors knew
that the businesses were practicing open and aggressive
employment discrimination. Civil Rights leaders sought to implement
a local Fair Employment Practices ordinance in 1950. This ordinance
was met with resistance on both the state and the local
level from the California State Assembly and the agricultural lobby.
There were an intense effort to ensure that there was legal recourse
for African Americans who were discriminated against by employers.
Broussard describes,

...there were attempts in 1945, 1946, 1949 to create a commission
whose most controversial feature was its "broad sweeping
power over employment discrimination, including the
authority to receive, investigate, act in, and render decisions" on
complaints that alleged discrimination in employment.

This was an incredible amount of power, to say the least,
and it wasn't going to be obtained without a protracted fight.

There was also open and aggressive housing discrimination
in San Francisco. Broussard writes,

Seaton Manning was so distressed over his personal housing
situation that he threatened to resign as executive director of the Urban
League and return to Boston. "After two full years," Manning wrote
Lester Granger, " we have been unable to find a house or apartment
in San Francisco. The housing shortage is acute ...Anything good
is restricted.

Black leaders thought that the housing shortage could be addressed
with a permanent low income housing unit. They soon learned differently.
Broussard describes how the San Francisco Housing Authority
allowed African Americans to live in only one of six newly constructed
housing projects. He writes,

The housing authority adopted a resolution in 1942 by unanimous vote
which stated.....In the selection of tenants for this project, this Authority
shall ac with references to the established usages, customs and traditions
of the community." Nor would the Housing Authority "insofar as possible
enforce the commingling of races, but shall insofar possible maintain and
preserve the same racial composition which exists in the neighborhood
where a project is located.

No commingling of races in "liberal" San Francisco? Who knew?

The state of 2009 Black San Francisco can only be examined
in the context of its history. Given the discrimination that African
Americans faced historically, the fact that San Francisco's African American
population grew from 43,460 in 1940, to 55,000 in 1951, and the restrictive
covenants that kept working class, middle class and prominent
African Americans from moving out the 'hood, the fact that African
Americans are leaving San Francisco in droves isn't that surprising.

At the end of the day, when we look at shifting demographics,
it is important for us to turn to history and to what is going
on in the world at large in order to understand how our economic
system and legal policies affect our lives.

If we do this, I think we will be on the road to having a meaningful
conversation about the sustainability of our communities.

Want more?
Tania Ketenjian conducted an interview with Medicine for
Melancholy director Barry Jenkins.
Tom Wetzel's essay, What is Gentrification? is informative.

Experience any gentrification lately?
Can you afford to buy a house in the neighborhood where you grew up?
Why do people hate hipsters?
Was this post informative? Is there anything you wish I would have discussed?

Faith, publisher of the Acts of Faith Blog will be joining us
for this podcast.
Sunday, April 19th at 7pm.
Call in number, (347) 843-4723.