JeffreyVentrella.com
(from the genius of National Geographic editor Bill Allen....)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0204/p02s01-ussc.html
http://www.oursbrun.com/blog/archives/000063.html
http://www.epnworld-reporter.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/659/National_Geographic:_Sink_Or_Swim.html
A piece in mysterium.aqualyrica.com....
http://www.mysterium.aqualyrica.com/Archives/2003_01_01_mysterium_archive.html.....
Here is the text by Carlos Arribas, extracted....
RIP National Geographic
I'm a huge fan of National Geographic, been reading it religiously every month since I was 7.
I have a complete collection going back to 1982, as well as dozens of wonderful NG books and maps.
And I credit the magazine (along with a cherished set of Encyclopędia Britannica) for my
insatiable curiosity about the world. Hell, I even make a point of visiting them every time
I'm in DC. But things have been changing at the National Geographic Society over the past,
I don't know, 10 years or so. It must have started about the time the Internet took off.
Perhaps responding to what they perceived as Americans' shortened attention spans, the magazine's
articles were trimmed down, and their number per issue increased. It was (still is) the world's
best magazine, but it had lost some of its depth. One day, I noticed that the Society had
conferred upon its president the additional title of "CEO," strange, I remember thinking,
for a non-profit organization. Soon this was followed by the spawning of an evil stepchild named
"National Geographic Ventures," apparently a fully for-profit gig, with stakes in web properties,
map kiosks in malls, and co-branded merchandise multiplying like vermin. By now a
website
had been launched, and soon it would devote more and more of its (nonprofit?) real estate to
links and pop-up ads for NG goodies. Then, horror of horrors! the Geographic was put up for
sale at newstands a couple years ago, dealing a deathblow to what had been (granted, this too
had been a brilliant marketing gimmick 4 generations ago) a 100-year "members only" affair.
More recently, the Geographic has strayed further away from its world-renowned exploration
and research, devoting itself instead to feature films, a flashy cable channel, and an
endless regurgitation of content for the supermarket magazine racks. Case in point: the
multivolume NG "Collectors Editions," sold on newstands, featuring images (wonderful ones,
of course) culled from the archives. Which brings us (finally! you say) to the point of
this rant. The NG has gone too far this time. This week a shocked America (and gleeful
hordes of masturbating preteen boys) was greeted at the local newstand by the latest of these,
The National Geographic Swimsuit Issue, an unapologetic (listen to this NPR interview with editor
Bill Allen to hear just how weaselly unapologetic) tribute to relentless American
commercialism, in which nothing is beyond the ambition of marketeers. To say that this
is cheap, to pronounce that National Geographic has Officially Sold Out, would be mere charity.
I'm speechless. Rather, it's as you found out that sweet Sister Mary from second grade was
taking it up the ass on weekends for crack money.