Coming of Age! Media&Values at 21

Twenty-one… a magic age on the road from youth to maturity.

In the publishing world, it is said that if a magazine can make it through the first five years, it will make it for ten.

And so, this issue of Media&Values is a double celebration. It's our 21st issue and the beginning of our sixth year of publication. It is, for us, a magic time, full of gratitude for growth as well as eager anticipation of future development.

As editor and publisher these five years, I am most grateful for all the people who have made Media&Values a reality four times a year. This includes not only present and past staff — those who have helped to write, design, type, paste-up, proofread and keep up the subscription list — but also the printers, typesetters and mailers who have graciously adjusted to our schedule changes and patiently waited for payment!

Plus, of course, I am grateful to you, our readers and subscribers, who make it all worth while by your letters, your requests to reprint something for your own audience, your offers to distribute brochures about us.

At 21, we believe Media&Values has come of age as a low-budget journal of opinion in the broad field of media and religion.

And so to celebrate, we have developed a three-year plan to insure continued growth. It involves a coordinated effort to enrich the editorial content while expanding promotion to increase circulation. Here are some highlights — and how you might help.

Editorial

We continue to look for new authors and resources to deepen and broaden our coverage of media trends and issues relevant to our readers. We have an excellent advisory board (see list below) and we hope to make greater use of their expertise to plan new directions. We also hope to advertise soon for an editor (halftime) who can concentrate on the many editorial tasks involved.

If you have ideas for articles or if you'd like to write a short piece, even a book review or a Word-Breaking column, we want to hear from you.

Promotion

It takes promotion to increase circulation. But promotion can also take money. And lots of it.

The best promotion, however, and the most cost-effective for a small publication like ours, is done by satisfied readers...people who will distribute flyers at meetings they coordinate...organizations and communities that will endorse Media&Values as a key resource for their members and encourage them to subscribe by negotiating a bulk subscription price or at least including our flyers in their mailings.

We're now developing a new promotion campaign with posters flyers and envelopes. We'll send them free if you'll get them out.

Circulation

This involves not only getting new subscribers but also keeping old ones. And that means a regular renewal process with up to four renewal notices (so the experts tell us).

We don't have our own computer yet (our computer-pin fundraising campaign is still going on… how about a donation to celebrate our birthday?) but we're computerizing our list at a nearby service with this issue. We'll now be able to keep track more easily of when subscriptions come in and when it's time to renew.

Many readers are due for renewal with this issue and notices should arrive soon. You can help us save postage, time and energy by renewing with the first notice.

Also, help us get new subscribers by passing this issue, and the new-subscriber form enclosed, along to a friend. We'll replace your copy free. Drop us a line.

We'll share more of our plan as these first steps are realized. In the meantime I hope you'll join us in toasting our coming of age and all that that means for the future.