Issue #17: Spring 2007

Editor's Letter: Oil paintings, keen readers & the kid with the mask

by Chris Petty

I received a magazine in my mail box a few weeks ago from one of Canada’s other large universities. I get university magazines from around the world, and it’s endlessly interesting to read about these institutions and, even better, to see what their magazines look like.

The magazine in question was thick and full of things one would expect in an alumni-oriented publication: obits, class notes, stories about alumni and the university, notes about research projects, etc. What stopped me cold, though, was the cover. It was a close up photograph of the university’s president, a big smile on her face.

I’m sure this person is a top academic, a visionary leader and a master of that unique set of political skills all first-rate university presidents must possess. I’m convinced she is extremely smart, articulate and top-of-the-class in every way.

But, as my wise old auntie would say, she’s no oil painting.

Now, before you start warming up the tar and plucking the chickens, hear me out. She’s a perfectly attractive woman, and while the snapshot is OK, it doesn’t belong on a cover. There’s nothing interesting, artful or compelling about the way she’s been photographed, nothing that indicates either her stature or her accomplishments.

The simple, bottom-line purpose of any publication, even a house organ, is to attract readers. William Randolph Hearst, by all accounts the Conrad Black of his day, was nonetheless a gifted newspaperman and knew what readers wanted. “To sell a magazine,” he reportedly said, “you need a family, a pet or a pretty girl on the cover.” In short, an image that entices the reader to pick it up and open it. Dress the president in pink leather and put her on a Harley, like they did with the president of the University of Texas and you might have a chance.

A magazine with a smiling headshot of the university president on the cover is likely to stay closed regardless of how sterling a character he or she might be. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. Like it or not, we compete for eyeball space with Cosmopolitan, Time, Maxim, and PC World. 

It’s the same with content. Surveys, focus groups and anecdotal reports tell us that the article about the new dean’s vision for the faculty might as well have its pages glued shut, and the hagiographic piece on the big donor could be printed backwards. No one would notice except the dean, the donor and their families.  

What readers do want to read, whether in Trek Magazine or House and Garden, are interesting stories that entertain, enlighten and inspire. The very best university magazines – Portland University, UCLA Magazine, Reed, Duke, for example – would do as well on the newsstand as any commercial magazine. They represent their institutions with elegant design, striking imagery and great stories. No outlandish cheerleading, no lying-through-their-teeth whitewashes of dubious university policy, no inflated homages to rich, but otherwise uninteresting patrons. They understand that their readers are sophisticated, educated and smart enough to know self-serving hyperbole when they read it.

That’s not to say compelling pieces can’t be written about visionary deans or insightful donors. They can and are. But that’s our job as purveyors of UBC’s image. Our goals, as editors of university magazines, are fairly simple. We want to leave you with the idea that your alma mater is a pretty cool place where ideas flourish and people do exciting things. We want you to feel a bit of pride, a certain amount of nostalgia and the sense that you belong here. And we want to point you in the right direction should you feel like getting involved in some aspect of the place.

We’re completely aware that a cover showing a kid standing in a field wearing a rabbit mask, even if it is germane to a story inside, only serves to get you to open the magazine. Then, we’d better produce the goods. The proof is in the reading, and we hope you enjoy doing just that. ¤

Chris Petty, MFA ’86 is the Editor of Trek Magazine