Ad Blackout

Hands down I think Alpinist is where it’s at. I’m a lifelong subscriber to Climbing and only a part to R&I. Climbing has good content most of the time but also lots of “filler”. Alpinist is, well i suppose you get what you pay for.

I’ve been thinking the exact same thing about climbing mags lately. My issue of climbing came in a few days ago and I didn’t even want to look at it. Some of the pictures are cool but most of the articles are boring and uninspiring. All the training/injury articles are just being recycled from previous years and there is rarely any new content. I much prefer watching climbing vids online than reading any magazine.

Alex, just wanted to add that it’s beginning to feel like many of the destination articles are repeats from previous years as well.

I get Alpinist, R&I, and Climbing (the latter two only because they are damn cheap, probably from the ad revenue). IMO Alpinist certainly has the nicest layout, but for those of us who don’t give a shit about the mountains, it’s appeal is somewhat limited. Am I the only one who kind of wishes R&I and Climbing would pool their resources and make one really good mag with a broader appeal? Like Alpinist but without the lame alpinism focus? Narc your site rarely has alpine or mountaineering news, you must feel the same way?

First of all, let me give a shout out to my subscriptions: Climbing and Urban Climber. That is not to say that I don’t read Rock & Ice or Alpinist. Rather, I choose to pay full price for them every month at the local climbing shop. I want to give them the full money because I think they feature two of the best writers in the business right now, Jeff Jackson and Andrew Bisharat. There are no better key pounders around one can read on a monthly basis (I know freelancers kill it as well, such as John Long, but these guys are putting out the highest quality every 30 or so days). Matt Samet, with Climbing, can also twirl the pen. Anyway, on to business.

Listen, here’s the rub as I see it. The rags are in a tough spot. I agree that not enough human stories are told, when mirrored with the ridonkulous mutant send stories. I agree that the training/injury articles are recycled year in and year out, a la Men’s Health. Each article tells 10% of the story 10 times a year, so one buying a year subscription might get a full article on what they want to read, for example about tendon injuries or campus board sessions. It’s an old trick, although maybe not construed as a trick by the powers that be. I also agree that some of the destination pieces are recycled or doubled up by competing rags in the same month (Mexico bouldering, Washington bouldering…both recently and by R&I and Climbing). Then again, Jesus, we can’t imagine new stellar destinations out of the miasma.

But to scribble out the ads in a mag shows what, exactly? That ads suck? Indeed, advertisements suck. We know this. Commercials during Seinfeld suck. Pop-ups suck on the internet. I get it. But let’s take a gander at the inverse situation, if you please. The rags lower their advertisements and what happens? Revenue diminishes. As most of you stated ahead of me, you don’t buy anyway. So, the mags go away, replaced by websites and blogs serving for news, but not paying for subscription and hence NOT PAYING TALENT TO WRITE. We get average articles and pontifications, perhaps from great climbers, but not great writers. We get status quo, and for nothing. Thanks, I’ll pay for one good article: to support my peers, to support the industry, to support the art. If we don’t, at least some of us, do that…well, I’m not an economist, but I’m pretty comfortable with my foresight.

I used to be a buyer for the oldest climbing shop in Denver (and now, if you couldn’t tell, a freelance writer). Personally owned for 30 damn years, serving the community with climbers, kayakers, and tele skiers that got out there and killed it, that knew snow conditions in the mountains, that knew what hole best served rodeo moves, that knew what route most needed re-bolting. And yeah, our prices were .25 cents higher than REI. You know what happened? Of course you do. After 30 years, the shop was history, and now Denver has only one core climbing shop…and REI (not that REI is bad, but you ain’t gonna get the bad-ass characters shilling the smarts that you’d get in a mom-and-pop shop).

In the same way, if we don’t support our mags and foster some sort of solution to the problem, we’ll be out a handful of killer rags that, by your own estimations, CAN ONLY GET BETTER. Instead of shitting on the rags, let’s holler, let’s scream, let’s get them on our train and tell them where we want to go! Let us not watch these guys launch from the edge, but rather talk them down. Let’s offer some solutions to the industry problem that seems to be cropping up. Let’s not lose these rags. Let’s make them better.

Cheers,
Dave

The one thing that troubles me about these “comment on the mags” postings that show up on the blogs and forums all the time is that none of the writers ever bother to contact any magazine editors for their side of the story, or perspective. So much more goes into any magazine than what you see in the finished product.

Narc, it’s disingenuous to stand icily above the climbing industry, commenting on it negatively with seeming impunity. The hard work of professional athletes, the companies that sponsor them, and the magazines that do their best to cover these climbers (and yes, happen to accept ads, too) makes it possible for you – Google-like paying nobody anything – to aggregate this content and offer it for free.

You can say whatever you want about Climbing or any of the other magazines, but here’s the real scoop: I’m the only full-time editor at Climbing. My wife was in 3 days a week but left to take another job. Can one person, of whatever talent level (and I’m not really of that old-school arrogant mindset that magazine editors know more than anyone else), somehow offer an all-pleasing, all-encompassing view of an international sport, while still hitting budgets, doing their best by contributors (five to 10 queries a day land in my inbox), readers, and advertisers? Would you like to try? It’s a daunting, thankless task, to be sure, and all I can really say is that I’ve tried my hardest for a long time (years) now. All of the endless, faceless (what’s your real name?) Internet criticism hurled our way does have a negative impact – on our psyches, on the industry, and on confidence in publishing in general.

Climbing Magazine isn’t some giant, soulless, corporate edifice against which to rail. Right now it’s one person, and guess what – I bleed just like the rest of you.