I started out in the publishing business as a political reporter in NY in the early 1980s. I met some amazing people in 1982, including Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch. I was also introduced that year to Editor & Publisher magazine. E&P was the bible of the newspaper business and I read it, religiously, as I climbed the ranks from reporter to city editor and, ultimately, to editor in 1985. When I moved to the advertising side of the publishing business in 1986, E&P was still a must read. As a publisher, E&P was my go-to resource on all aspects of the magazine business from circulation to technology.
When I learned earlier this month that Editor & Publisher was publishing its final issue, I felt as if I had lost an old friend. E&P dates back to the late 1800s when William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were battling it out for newspaper supremacy in many major U.S. cities, including New York. Clearly, the fact that Editor & Publisher will not see another year is no surprise. It is a magazine (not the best business to be in today) about the newspaper industry (an industry that has been under ridiculous pressure from the Internet for the past decade). But, none the less, it was like a punch in the gut; for someone who read it from cover-to-cover for so many years.
Ironically, the things I learned from the pages of E&P helped me greatly even after I joined Yahoo! in 1999. When, for instance, I was handed an all color, PepsiStuff redemption booklet, by Pepsi's John Vail, and asked to help him build Pepsistuff.com my knowledge of "the five p's of publishing" immediately kicked in. To E&P -- thanks for the knowledge base and thanks for the memories, my dear friend -- with your passing, the baton has, officially, been passed to a new *digital* age.
