Category / 100 Words

by Magdiaries

Show them the dinosaurs

The first time I saw a dinosaur, a Formula 1 car and a supermodel in a bikini they were on the pages of a magazine.

There are many people eager to discover things on our planet and I believe magazine know-how can play a part in their journey. Human curiosity needs expert guidance. It needs informed, organised surprise. Magazines stand for both.

Publishers around the world just need to learn how to use all the new tools the digital world offers, like our children do these days.

It’s funny, such a simple recipe: Follow the children… And show them the dinosaurs!

Fabrizio D’Angelo | CEO, Burda International; Chairman, FIPP



Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

Dealing with human beings

Write something for publication and you’re exposing yourself to people.

Express an unpopular opinion, as you inevitably will sometime, and those people are perfectly entitled to say terrible things about you.

The way to deal with the intestinal discomfort which mockery causes is to understand yourself better. You are there to supply information. But you are human, and other humans think differently to the way you think. Don’t worry about it.

Magazines are a great place for this illuminating process to occur because they are beautiful and ephemeral.

Tensions run high between the writer and the reader. ‘Twas ever thus.

Joel McIver | The UK’s “most prolific rock & metal author“



Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

I’m not a magazine person

I am not a magazine person. I make conferences for magazine people.

I’ve made all kinds of conferences before; when it came to magazines, it was just another job. It’s very abstract work. You learn all the trade secrets, but barely understand a word anybody says.

Six months: I spoke to everyone and they told me everything. They were transforming content strategies, building new ad products, and following their customers everywhere.

One fine day I was invited to see a magazine CEO. What were these rectangles lined along the wall?

That was the day I learned what a magazine was.

Dan Williamson | Strategy Manager, TheMediaBriefing



Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

Tactility, insight and sensation

Tactility, insight and sensation. That’s why I love magazines.

Contemplating news, opinions and features that I know will evoke new, previously unconstructed thoughts. Appreciating writers who make connections that can only be made when one has actually taken the time to actually think about something.

The joy that comes as synapses spark on seeing, reading, understanding. Revelling in words crafted by those who understand my passion and want to feed it.

And on a physical level, feeling paper between my fingers – its weight and texture – is an unalloyed pleasure that no amount of swiping, pinching or dragging will ever diminish.

Kulwinder Singh Rai | former editor & writer; MD, RAi PR



Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

A peculiar pleasure

There’s a peculiar pleasure in writing something and seeing it published, or inventing an idea and commissioning it, or nailing some thunderous cover story, or packing an issue off to be printed and savouring that delicious moment when only you, the people who put it together, know precisely what’s poised to appear.

And there’s a peculiar pleasure in buying a publication whose contents are a complete surprise and finding yourself lost in it for hours, navigating your route through it in your own time and place.

I’m on the inside *and* outside of magazines and both are an extreme delight.

Mark Ellen | Journalist and editor; Author, ‘Rock Stars Stole My Life‘

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Grub Street Journal