Dear WSJ, A Style Magazine Doesn't Have To Be Superficial

The most impressive thing about the WSJ's new magazine, WSJ., is that it includes a feature called "Running Alaska," on the workout habits of one Sarah Palin, introduced to presumably unfamiliar readers as "the state's youngest governor ever, and the first woman to hold state office." The feature, like many in the magazine, is a single page long and relies heavily on a redacted interview. Absent Palinmania, the piece would be as dull and dutiful as most of the rest of the magazine, which came wrapped with Saturday's paper.

As a lifelong WSJ fan, I had high hopes for the magazine. The Journal is a great newspaper, intelligently written and edited for smart people. Its style coverage, whether oriented toward business or culture, is as good as the rest of the paper. But the magazine isn't. Good ideas--the evolution of "lifestyle" identities for jewelry, for instance--are executed in a superficial way, while good writers are wasted. Architecture critic Alastair Gordon, who wrote the terrific book Naked Airport, is given a six whole paragraphs to tell us about a house. The most substantive piece, perhaps because it could have run on the real WSJ's front page, is a feature on how cruise lines are luxing up their accommodations and separating the big spenders from the riff-raff. (Good historical photos, too.) On the whole, however, the magazine just isn't smart enough.

"We wanted to produce more than a catalog of things to buy," EIC Tina Gaudoin told a press conference, according to Matt Haber, reporting for the NY Observer. That much they managed. Unlike the NYT's various "T" magazines, this one didn't make me want to buy a thing. Worse (and also unlike "T"), it also didn't tempt me to clip any articles.

Quite a contrast to another WSJ venture in magazine journalism: the single prototype issue of The Wall Street Journal Magazine, published the summer of 1981, when I was an intern in the WSJ's now-defunct Philadelphia bureau. Consider some contrasts:

Most obvious is the words-versus-pictures balance, which begins on the cover. Once, the difference between a magazine and a newspaper was that the latter had shorter articles. Now (my employer excepted) it's the opposite. At least that's what the WSJ seems to think.

The Wall Street Journal Magazine didn't survive beyond the prototype, possibly because it didn't have an obvious ad base beyond the one already served by the newspaper and possibly because 1981 marked the worst recession since the Great Depression. But 27 years later, it's still interesting--because the curious writers who put it together were reporting on world-changing trends, from California wines to Silicon Valley job hoppers (like the guy in the hot tub).

On the other hand, the car ads are a lot more glamorous now.

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