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DirtRider Mag, Racer X, MXA & Transworld
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[QUOTE="Timr, post: 635999, member: 16236"] I too think that Swap is taking the brunt of our frustration because he was the only editor brave enough to venture in here. I've read a half dozen issues of TWMX and don't find them to be as guilty as DR and DB. Any of the older members of this forum know that I've been one who has loved to rail on the decline of the dirt bike print media. I posted a letter in the Flame forum that I sent to Ken Faught. Of course, no part of my letter got printed nor was it ever replied to. This gist of my complaint was that the entire magazine was now picture and caption driven. The actual amount of printed article type content had dwindled to almost nothing. There was only on editorial column, that was Ken's, and it was as useless as everyting that has ever been written (or ghost written) for Roland Hinz. The problem with the magazines was they had altered their content based on the resonpes that they got from those annual surveys. Well, that told them to target a younger demographic. Of course, you going to get a survey bias from any printed survey where you get entered to win a free bike if you fill it out. Every 12 year old out there is going to fill it out and hope to win the bike. How short sighted do you have to be to go with more pics, less print in order to appeal to the sub 18 year old group that has no money to spend on bikes and parts? In contract to the picture based catalogs loaded with Advertorial bike tests, you have a place like DRN. What you notice is, for the most part, it's all text based. So, there are actual dirt bikers out there who can still read, and have the patience to read a lot of text in one sitting. When you can read the entire magazine cover to cover in the amount of time that it takes to check out in the 20 items or less line at the grocery, you know there's a problem. My favorite is the infamous "insert aftermarket company" bike test, where you take a brand new bike, and throw $4000 worth of aftermarket parts at it. And, there's no real conclusions drawn about what actually worked better and what didn't. Are you saying that this type of article is not done as a kickback based on the number of pages purchased by said aftermarket company? 10 years ago, this kind of stuff didn't happen, as much. There was still a definate line between the editorial department and advertising sales. I have a Dirt Bike magazine in the floor next to my bed that has a CR250 test done in conjuction with Pro Circuit. Rick Johnson was the rider and do you know what they did to the stock CR250? They put on a PC pipe and silencer. That's it. No other changes. Then, they wrote a 3 page article about what that did to the bike and why it was worth it and how it compaired to stock and so forth. You don't see that anymore. Nor do you see those magazines venturing out to test bike at races outside of SoCAL. If you do, it's not done the way that it was in the past. The magazines are not taking their test bike from California to Texas or Florida or Ohio and racing them. They are mooching a bike from the race team and then testing that. One magazine got a bike from Team Suzuki FMF off road team. They of course rode in the shorter morning race because that's where the "industry" class is and it allowed them to take pics of the big boys that afternoon. Then they wrote an article that did little to convey what happened in the race, or how well the bike worked. Here again, what you get here is a thread from a number of different people who write about their own experiences at the exact same race. Readers then ask questions about the race and/or bike performance in that particular race condition. Eric Gorr and I have discussed this at length. After living abroad for a year, I asked him why he thought the european magazines, (including the ones that ran monthly columns written by Eric) do such a better job than the ones here in the states. His response was that they write all of their articles from the perspective of "trying to convey they riding experience to the reader" That makes a lot of sense. Why do we read magazines in the first place? Obviously for information and entertainment. But, the underlying reason is to get a feel for the hobby that we love. Everyone would rather ride than read, but you can't ride all the time so pic up a magazine and read about riding. Nobody wants to read a picture book or a catalog. All of my magazine subscriptions have expired. Things seem to be changing a little in the right direction, so I might subscribe to one or two next year. [/QUOTE]
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