There was something kind of sad today with the news that one of the great American periodicals will soon cease to exist in a printed format. LIFE Magazine, the venerable publication which has a storied history that also reflects the changing economics of print over the years… The big, glossy magazine came out weekly from 1936 to 1972, then was reincarnated as an occasional special issue, then as a monthly, and finally as a skinny newspaper supplement to accompany Sunday editions of local papers across the US.
In retrospect, that last move doesn't look particularly smart. "We hitched our star to an industry that's not growing," said managing editor Robert Shapiro. He’s dead right there, apart from the big metropolitan papers in New York, Chicago, LA etc., most newspapers in the US are in serious trouble.
The end for LIFE will happen with the final print supplement on April 20, but the LIFE brand will live on the Web in the form of a free archive of the magazine's renowned photos. On a site to be launched later this year, LIFE will post some 10 million images by such masters as Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and Gordon Parks, 97 percent of which have never been seen by the public. The goal, editors said, is to make the site "the preeminent destination to view the most important photography of our time, both archival and contemporary." I’m not quite sure how they’ll make money at it, but I wish them luck.
George Parker
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