What do Utne Reader and the Westboro Baptist Church have in common? Why, Topeka, Kansas of course. The venerable figurehead of the alternative press has announced its move from Minneapolis to Topeka after two more issues. Predictably, none of the Minneapolis staff will be making the transition.
Topeka-based Ogden Publications purchased Utne Reader six years ago from Nina Utne. I was the publication’s webmaster and online managing editor at the time and figured the writing was on the wall when Bryan Welch, Ogden’s publisher and editorial director, came into town and opened a meeting by telling the executive staff how to prevent dogs from killing chickens. I think there might have been a metaphor in there somewhere, but it went over my head. I liked Welch fine, but I was gone within days of the deal closing. Welch comes across as a country boy—he and his family farm 50 acres in Lawrence, KS—but he’s no hayseed, with a master’s from Harvard in media policy and management.
Neal Justin, writing for the Star Tribune, broke the story and cites Utne Reader editor-in-chief David Schimke as saying, “It’s a bummer. Everyone around here is in shock.” But much more interesting is Justin citing publisher Bryan Welch as saying “the magazine has yet to be financially successful under Ogden’s ownership.”
The magazine was started by Eric Utne—who still writes for the publication—in 1984 as a sort of Reader’s Digest of the alternative press. Nina took over in 1999. Circulation topped 300,000 in the mid-1990s and has currently dropped to 115,000. Justin reports that Welch acknowledges that the move is a consolidation play, but Schimke is more blunt, telling Justin that “he thinks Ogden wants to cut the editorial budget from about US$500,000 to US$250,000.”
Two big things I’m going to miss with Utne Reader leaving town: The friends still on staff there and the remarkable, incomparable library (the biggest benefit of working there). Turns out the friends remain; here’s hoping each one of them lands well come spring.
[Disclosure notice: I was employed by Utne Reader 2002-06 as webmaster and online managing editor.]
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