What do you do when the magazine on which you work is shut down? Keep working on the magazine, of course.
That’s what some of the folks at Editor & Publisher did when the Nielsen Co. closed both the web and print versions of the iconic publication that covers the newspaper industry. Two weeks ago, they set up a blog called E&P in Exile where they continued their excellent reporting and commentary, which goes light-years beyond the usual B&B fare of refried news releases. The idea was to keep the brand alive until someone decided it was worth buying and preserving.
The strategy worked. Nielsen sold E&P Thursday to another publisher, Duncan McIntosh, that plans to continue the magazine. Several staffers wasted no time returning from exile, posting articles on the resurrected E&P site less than 24 hours later.
Best of all, one of my all-time favorite blogs, Fitz & Jen, is back online at E&P. If you want to see how to cover a single industry’s breaking news in a fun yet informative way, check it out.
Folio: questioned how "E&P will mesh with Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc.'s stable of boating publications." That's easy. The company already produces FishRap, which sure sounds as if it could be about newsprint-based publications. And why shouldn't a boating publisher cover an industry that seems to be up the creek without a paddle?
People tend to give up on brands and lines of business too early simply because they aren't growing. If you run it right you can have flat or declining revenues and still have a profitable business.
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