James Williford is a curious fellow. He’s a member of the new crop of interns that started here this week. James just got a master’s degree in English from Georgetown, where he carried a 4.0 GPA and wrote a thesis titled “The Adultery of Delicate Objects,” which, according to his CV, was “a study of medieval art, objecthood, and ekphrasis.” He’s that kind of guy. Only way I know how to deal with interns that smart is to beat them down with time-wasting tasks in the hopes that they’ll give up their silly dreams of ever making a living in journalism and move on to investment banking. Or ekphrasis.
Anyway, after I saw this week’s cover the Dallas Observer, a profile of Victoria Jackson, I asked James to wade through the paper’s archives and tell me how many of the Dallas Observer’s cover stories in the past year have had nothing to do with Dallas. Including the Jackson story, it looks like 10 (see list, below). I suppose this only bothers me. And, now, James.
Feb 24, 2011 – Pomplamoose, California-based band
Mar 24, 2011 – Flawed sex trafficking study
May 12, 2011 – Sonya Fitzpatrick, British pet psychic
May 19, 2011 – Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips
Jun 9, 2011 – Austin
Jun 30, 2011 – Ashton Kutcher and sex trafficking
Nov 3, 2011 – Underage sex workers (mentions Dallas but isn’t locally focused)
Nov 17, 2011 – Drugs in Lufkin
Dec 15, 2011 – The College Bowl System
Jan 26, 2012 – Victoria Jackson
Update (3:24) – It has come to my attention that the Flaming Lips story was set entirely in Dallas. For this error, James will pay dearly.
34 comments
Observer editor Joe Tone has found a way to deal with this problem:
http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2012/01/26/dallas-observer-seeks-art-director/comment-page-1/#comment-209343
Ekphrasis. I’m working that into my conversation with my bowling mates this evening. In fact, I’ve named my degrees Mike and Stan. I want to punch Mike and Stan. Ekphrasis.
In fairness, that Wayne Coyne story doesn’t count, because — if I recall — it was all about him using a local vinyl manufacturer.
I read The Observer’s Unfair Park, not their paper, so the D.O.’s weekly covers are a non-issue to me
THE James Williford? http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=62077
Okay, it’s a weekly, so that’s nine out of 52. And your point is?
I suppose Tone could waste some time figuring out how many D Magazine covers in the past year contained either a food pic, hot babe or the local doctor with the best hair and smile.
So, so many thoughts, but I’ll limit myself to two, because I have a story about corruption at a Toledo bingo hall to edit:
1. If you’d bothered to tell your intern that it’s a good idea to reach out to the entities he covers, I would have happily talked to him about this.
2. If I assigned an intern to count up the number of stories you guys have done on the Observer this year, you’d all be arrested for stalking by day’s end.
yeah, what is with you guys(particularly Tim) and y’alls(Mr.Rogers, again) obsession with the DO?
Why would he need to contact the Observer to write a simple statistic on whether the cover story has anything to do with Dallas? I know it is a really complex statistic, and I’m no journalist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and even I could figure out whether a story relates to Dallas or not.
@Tim, CV….fancy.
hmmm, i mean i get what you’re saying but it’s not like D is the holy grail of pertinent stories to the greater welfare of Dallas. there’s also two differences, D has to sell magazines, while DO is free.
i think the Victoria Jackson story really isn’t any good and seems to just trying to uncover something funny, crazy, political. would indeed like to see more coverage on local politics, groups, local politics and state, corporations, etc.
RE: Mr. Tone’s latest response:
I believe the term the kids use is Oh Snap.
@Avid Reader: [head nod of acknowledgment for solid comment]
@mynameisbill: Obsession? I see stuff; I comment on it. Observer, Morning News, local TV, dragons performing in the street, highway signage — there’s a lot of stuff out there to comment on. This blog has been dishing out media criticism since it started.
@Joe Tone: I smiled at your Toledo bingo hall joke and would one day like to buy you a beer. Because you always seem to handle criticism with a sense of humor, and I bet if I bought you enough beer, you’d say some really funny stuff about Robert Wilonsky.
@Brenda Marks: If I worked someplace else and had access to a blog, that’s exactly the sort of thing I’d do.
In 2011, we did three food covers (one of which was journalism (as opposed to reader service) about In N Out coming to town).
We did NOT put a doctor on a cover, though we did put a baby acting as a doctor on a cover.
We put one babe on a cover (riding a mechanical bull), unless you count Troy Aikman as a babe, in which case it was two.
And we did one cover that featured the best hair. Dirk, in August.
This is too funny. You guys judging another media outlet. Just continue catering to what you know – or pretend to know. Let others take care of themselves. If D Magazine were the only media representation of Dallas we truly would be viewed as nothing but the pretentious, self indulgent jerks.
Tim comes across as jealous of the DO (and threatened by intelligent people) once again.
Perhaps it’s because his own publication has devolved into little more than an endlessly repeating series of the same stories year after year after year: Best Schools in Dallas!; Best Neighborhoods in Dallas!; Most expensive houses in Dallas!; Best Restaurants in Dallas!; Best* Lawyers in Dallas!; Best* Doctors in Dallas!; Wealthy Sports Figures Sure Do Some Nutty Things!
*(”Best” meaning not most effective or competent, of course, but most popular, as if all of life were like high school—which, admittedly, tends to be the cultural bar D aims for.)
The question is, just how “Dallas” is D Magazine? D is one of the magazines you find on your hotel coffee table in a different city, and flip through purposelessly while you’re waiting for your wife to finish putting on her makeup. But it needn’t be.
I challenge D to go for a year without writing about restaurants, sports, or promoting doctors or lawyers in any way. Write solely about things that are actually important, and important to the development of Dallas as a city with its own sensibility and guts. Not social butterfly, logrolling nonsense, and not 40% of the pages being taken up by ads. Actual content. Stuff that you’d find in a real magazine that humans actually read. Otherwise, quit drooling over the Observer.
Thinking Dallas can become “world class” with restaurants and stadiums is like thinking a person can get in better physical shape with liposuction and a boob job. Not really. And that’s all D reflects. When in truth, D Magazine is positioned to be helping lead the way into a brighter future—but all it does is repeat the same old drivel. Use your position and visibility to do something meaningful. Or at least fail while trying. Man up and have the courage to work with some vision and a sense of purpose.
Tim if you change your panties every now and then you will find that you become less bitter. Also, Victoria Jackson/Robert Jeffress=Six-one/half dozen.
“we did three food covers (one of which was journalism (as opposed to reader service) about In N Out coming to town”
A thumb sucking piece on a fast food operation opening in Dallas is journalism?
Tim must think D’s coverage of the Kardashians is Pulitzer material.
Still pissed at JimS for the story about you pulling strings with DISD?
And this makes me sad.
Adam said it best! I couldn’t agree with him more.
Tim, great post. It immediately reminded me of the story Debbie Denmon recently did on WFAA when she had her phone swabbed to find out how germy it was. Novel, unprecedented, groundbreaking material by both of you, and kudos to you both for instantly making our local horizons that much more vast.
Truth be told, though, if you wanted to you could probably recycle this piece to run again in, what, six weeks? Seven?
What percentage of “journalism” in D Magazine or the Observer is paid for by advertisers? Answer: 100% Both rags lack perspective.
D is not DO and DO is no D. That makes most people happy.
Adam – who probably has little or no business experience – wants D Magazine to change their business model? Now? In the current state of media publishing? – snicker -
@Jared Parsons: All of the journalism in D is paid for by advertisers. Or nearly all. That’s our business model. Newsstand sales and subscription sales account for a fraction of our revenue (which is the case with nearly all U.S. magazines). We make most of our money selling ads. That’s how we can afford to hire editors and writers.
If you have any other questions, let me know. I’m happy to explain our business to the best of my ability.
@Adam: If only 40 percent of our pages were ads, I don’t think we could stay in business. The way the cycle works is this: advertisers buy fewer ads at the beginning of the year (keeping their powder dry). Then they buy more toward the end (using up their budgets for the year). Thinner issues at the beginning of the year mean a higher edit-to-ad ratio. Just guessing, but a January issue might be only 30 percent advertising. We then make hay at the end of the year, and that ratio flips. On an annual basis, we shoot for about a 50-50 split of ads and edit. Again, this is the model that nearly all U.S. magazines use.
Thanks for reading!
Tim, I’m always puzzled when you take up this question about the local bona fides of the “Phoenix-based Dallas Observer.” You invariably end up on the defensive on your own comment board, and for what? To prove D is Dallas’ authentic local magazine? (To boost pageviews and comments?) It’s a silly debate and I say give it a rest.
By the way, Joe Tone is a standup guy to regularly participate and respond with cordiality and magnanimity. Ribbing him and the Observer is all in good fun and a spirit of competition, but I hope it’s at least six months before we see another shot come across the bow. It’s not necessary to score points with loyal readers. You’ve already won.
@Adam: Don’t hate the playa.
I agree with Brooks’ comment. I’ve always wondered why you won’t rib Texas Monthly. They take ad money from you and have been adding more ed. space for Dallas-related stories. Then again, they hire sparky editors, eh?
@Poo-Bah: Texas Monthly is harder to rib because they don’t put stories about Sheboygan on their cover. When Skip Hollandsworth writes a story that’s worth comment or when they publish a Dallas story, I DO usually say something about it on this blog. And if you’ll search FrontBurner for the word “TexMo,” you’ll see it used pretty frequently. That’s because one of us heard once upon a time that the staff there didn’t like the appellation, just like the Observer folks don’t like “Phoenix-based Dallas Observer.”
Mature, right?
One city publication commenting on another city publication.
Both are part of the city.
Judging by the number of comments, you’d think this was really big deal, like Glen Beck.
So any criticism of D Magazine can handily be deflected by citing a “business model,” whereas that’s no excuse for the Observer (or more accurately, VVM)?
D Magazine and the Observer share geographical provenance, but it doesn’t seem to me they compete in the same space. I’m too old to hit the clubs and bars every weekend, but too poor to afford even the nine-hundred and seventy-seventh best plastic surgeon in Dallas (let alone the estimable nine-hundred and seventy-sixth), and so therefore I am neither pub’s target demo. I’ll continue to enjoy each for what it offers — mostly good, sometimes fatuous, and occasionally downright great writing about the city I know and disparage. The intramural quibbling has ceased to amuse.
I’m waiting on pins and needles for the next D Magazine cover.
“Best DO cover stories now about Dallas!” –
subtitle – Did you know DO is owned by a company in Phoenix????
I have to wonder if the people disparaging D here even bother reading the magazine sometimes.
Texas Monthly is owned by EMMIS Communications, which is based in Indianapolis, which is not located in Texas.
I’d humbly request that Frontburner begin referring to that estimable publication as “the Indianapolis-based Texas Monthly” …
@I’m just sayin’: That is a fair request that shall be honored, sir (or ma’am).