Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
Metro Magazine’s tag line will be “Your Weekly Guide to DC Life…” and it will faithfully execute that promise. This magazine will be published weekly with more in depth reporting on topics that you would typically find in a newspaper’s “metro” or “life” section while being timelier than monthly news magazines. The title, Metro Magazine, is a play on the name of the Washington, D.C. Metro Transit System, and the nature of the content of the magazine. The word Metro is to elicit a connection with readers who spend a great deal of time traveling on the actual Metro System. The magazine will likely be sold in and around the metro, and will be something meant for the reader to consume while traveling around the city. The content will resemble a metro or life section of a newspaper and will publish features that deal with topics like city government, public schools, and other special topics while still maintaining some focus on relevant national news. The name Metro Magazine is
enduring and identifiable to the residents of D.C., whether they live in Georgetown, on The Hill, or in Arlington. This identity will be central in the theme of the magazine’s content, because in addition to editorial coverage, Metro Magazine will publish essays/prose written by readers and photographs of the city submitted online. In fact, each week the cover of the magazine will be selected from these photographs. I have given some consideration to the fact that Metro Magazine could be published in other cities with the editorial focus being on each magazine’s unique location. This said; names like EL Magazine (Chicago) or Underground (London) are likely choices. Metro Magazine will work to inform readers of the news in the D.C. area and abroad. It will be published weekly, and take timely topics and look at them more in depth than a newspaper may, while remaining more local and specialized than
Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
publications like Newsweek and Time. In this pursuit Metro Magazine will use a more in depth approach to news to help its readers better interpret the topics it covers. This will be crucial, as the magazine will work to be a part of the reader’s life; something they take with them on their commute and sometimes contribute stories or photographs to. The magazine will work to entertain readers with its various department pages. Sections like “I See, You See” will publish readers’ photographs taken around the city. “The A-Train” will cover social events, and “On Stage” will keep readers up-to-date weekly on different theatres’ schedules. These department topics will be zoned, meaning the magazine will cover multiple advertising and content zones that will be based on the unique geographic and demographic identities of the various sections of the D.C. metro area. For example, the theatre schedule will be based on the theatres that are closest to the reader. This type of zoning will go further to promote the brand identity of the magazine as being part of the reader’s life. The magazine will work to advocate for the reader by covering topics in local government and other social issues that will directly impact the reader. This editorial content will be produced in a manner as to create a better understanding of every side of an issue so that the reader may formulate a more informed opinion. Above all, a magazine will not exist without providing exceptional service. Service will be important to the identity of the magazine as being part of the culture of the reader. Metro
Magazine will cost only $1.00, and provide relevant timely news presented with advertising that while targeted and relevant to the needs and wants of the reader, is not obtrusive or misleading in nature. The editorial content of Metro Magazine will be reporting on city and national issues. It will also report on entertaining topics, like where to find the best fall foliage or
Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
the top places to eat lunch. The content will have the feel of Texas Monthly, which bills itself as “The national magazine of Texas.” It in sense will be “the national magazine of D.C.” It will be witty like the New Yorker, but less lofty. It will cover national politics, because the city is based around that subject, but will also focus on local news. It will have no political leaning, and its opinion content will be reader generated and provide an outlet for different points of view. Primarily Newsweek, Texas Monthly, and The New Yorker inspire the style of the magazine. The theme is based on the colors and layout of a Metro map. The magazine’s title is a cropped image of the “M” of a metro sign, then below “Futura” font in bold. The headlines and subheads are “Geneva,” and the body copy is all 10-point “Adobe Garamond Pro” regular. The contents page is based on the map and the colors are each line. Each line will lead you to a feature, and the key will always be the color. The colors are varied, but the primary colors are based on the department pages, which are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. The colors are seen throughout the magazine. For instance, whatever the color of the line leading to the feature story on the contents page, that is color of the circle containing the page number for that story. This theme is familiar to the reader, tries to be fun, and may improve the reader’s ability to find content. The colors seen on the contents page are the colors used throughout the magazine, sometimes they are muted and manipulated, but every color seen in the magazine is presented on that page. The magazine is somewhat type heavy, as the readers of this magazine are older, educated, and mostly interested in the content. That said, the magazine’s graphics work to be informative, funny, and relevant.
Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
As was mentioned earlier, the magazine in paper content will be zoned. The advertising will be based on the demographic and geographic identity of the reader. The readers will typically be highly educated men and women living in different parts of the D.C. metropolitan area ages 25-55. They will read the magazine before or during their commute and rely on it to fill the gap between newspapers and magazines. The magazine will be sold by mail subscription and single-copy purchase. The advertisements will be clearly marked, and not run within a particular feature. The advertisements will be run through the book dividing feature and department pages. In addition to in-book
advertising, saturations and outserts will be sold to interested advertisers. A saturation wrap will focus on specific zip code zones and will be delivered to non-subscribers and subscribers of the magazine. The advertisers will purchase the copies and pay for postage. The magazine will be wrapped with a special outsert for that advertiser. This will serve both the advertiser and the publication in reaching specific audiences and increasing the use of their individual products. This method of advertising has proven to be very effective for newspapers and is a common practice. Outserts will also be sold for single-copy issues of the magazine and be zone specific according to the advertiser’s needs. Metro Magazine will average 45-50 pages of total content. It will be printed on glossy thin paper in order to make it lightweight and user friendly. The editorial content will include department pages, small one-page features, and full-length 4-6 page features. There will be 4 department pages, “The A-Train,” “On Stage,” “I See, You See,” and “My View, Your View.” “The A-Train” will cover “A-List” parties and social events and have small 200 word summaries of a select few each week. “On Stage” will
Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
be a zone specific theatre schedule. “I See, You See” will be an on-going 2 page photo spread of photographs taken by readers of the magazine while on their commutes around D.C., and each week one reader will be selected to have their photograph used as the cover of the magazine. This content will be part of the effort of Metro Magazine to make the reader part of the experience and content. “My View, Your View” will work to further that, by being a place to publish the reader’s views on world, national, and local topics. Additional content will be published on the website where each departments page will have its own unique site. There will be 4 one-page features covering timely national, international, and local topics that may have not made it to the feature section or happened recently. The magazine will also use this section to publish essays and prose written by readers when quality work is submitted. The content written by the reader will not be regular and will always be specially marked. Finally, there will 5 features that will average 4-6 pages in length. The features will always contain two national topics, two local topics, and either additional national or local topics or a special entertainment, international, or opinion topic. The prototype contains two national topics (education and housing), a local topic (cost of safety), and an entertainment topic (fall foliage). The feature topics will average 3,000-6,000 words, and contain various infographics, photographs, and pull quotes. containing minimal body copy. Most feature stories will have a two-page spread The content will be published in the order it was
presented here: Contents page, Department Pages, One-Page Features, and Multi-Page Features. Advertising will divide each individual section and total 14 pages. The
advertising will be half page and full-page ads that will be zone specific. The layout and graphics of the ad will contain complimentary colors to the editorial pages, but be clearly
Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
identifiable. Likely advertisers will be companies that want to target the highly educated women and men ages 25-55. The publication will have rates in between that of
newspapers and monthly magazines, and work to maintain a consistent advertising base. Metro Magazine will work to become a part of D.C. culture reporting on events, crime, and business providing a unique mix of magazine and newspaper style of journalism. The publication will also have a website, www.metromag.com, that will be updated daily with blogs, links, and relevant news topics. The site will be partially usergenerated by those who subscribe to Metro Magazine. The user can publish a blog, post pictures, and post a “craig’s list” style of advertising. This relationship with the readers will continue the idea of Metro Magazine a culture and identity unto itself. The
publication will set a goal of 100,000 circulation within the first year, and 250,000 unique visitors to its website. In 10 years, the circulation goal will rise to 500,000 circulation with 1,000,000 unique visitors to the website. If successful, the brand will be adapted for additional metropolitan markets like New York or Chicago.
Editorial Philosophy Metro Magazine
Matthew Smelser Nolan 3390/Final Project
Metro Magazine Editorial Philosophy Nolan/3390 December 6, 2007