No News is Not Good News

One of the hardest jobs in the world probably has to be generating news articles for Linns stamp magazine or any of the other weekly philatelic news journals. Is there really enough news to fill 64 pages with stamp news every week? Probably not. But Linns could do a better job of trying. The November 14th issue has a headline article about die cuts missing from Scott #4478-82 and a sub lede of a German commemorative of a Berlin church. As you page through the magazine you see a number of newer issue news articles, none of which most collectors care about.  Now I know that Linns is a news weekly and I know the difference between news and commentary but there really are not that many people interested in the type of news stories that Linns is producing. A far better concept would mix news and commentary (sort of a Time Magazine format) and encourage discussion and exploration of philatelic topics. And get more new writers and jazz up the writing a bit. Several of the columnists who write for Linns have done so since I was a child. Look, I know it is easy to sit on the sidelines and make suggestions (which is what I am doing). Linns has done a great job stemming the subscriber base loss that hit all specialty market text publications. And perhaps the long term writing is on the wall and the publishers are trying to maximize their profits by spending as little on editorial content as possible and maximizing ad revenues . But Linns is the only general circulation weekly philatelic publication and it is a shame they are not trying harder to make the magazines editorial content more interesting, germane and entertaining.