Reader's Digest: Back to the Future?

National Review Online ^ | 6.19.09 | John J. Miller

[rvoitier]

Now comes this, according to the NYT:

After years of trying to broaden the appeal of Reader’s Digest, the publishers are pushing it in a decidedly conservative direction. It is cutting down on celebrity profiles and ramping up on inspiring spiritual stories. Out are generic how-to magazine features; in are articles about military life.

“It’s traditional, conservative values: I love my family, I love my community, I love my church,” said Mary Berner, the president and chief executive of Reader’s Digest Association.

[rvoitier]

Sign me up!

[Squantos]

They need a electronic pdf edition I can download off the net.......trying to starve out the post office myself.....:o)

I just sent a email to RD and told em I thought the overhaul of their magazine was a great idea.

[DJ MacWoW]

I had a subscription until they started with the monthly celeb stories etc. It became trash. I told them why I let my subscription lapse. 6 years later they are backtracking to what they once were. I may resubscribe.

[warsaw44]

for most of my teenage years I work each summer on a dairy farm. After lunch each day the farmer would take another hour to rest his legs ( war wounds ).

His wife had every edition of Readers Digest ever published. So for an hour each day, six days a week I'd read RD. Really a great magazine and in retrospect it seemed like a conservative publication.

I've no clue what the magazine looks like today though.

[Squantos]

Lots of it seems directed at seniors with medication side effects and such yet there are lots of giggles and good stories still ............and it fits in the back pocket of my carpenter jeans !

[BreitbartSentMe]

Well, the second part of the post makes me think that this is just a ploy:

The editorial team had even considered turning Reader’s Digest into a right-wing handbook, a companion to Fox News. “It was a supposition,” Ms. Berner said, that half the country is annoyed that Barack Obama is president.

“What if we just go after them?” said Ms. Berner, who has a framed photograph of President Obama in her office.

So, the group of liberals running the place right now are going to put out a magazine full of what THEY PERCEIVE us 'right-wing nuts' want to read??? No thanks...

[mdk1960]

The Reader’s Digest was a great mag back in the Cold War days, one of the very few mags my very conservative parents subscribed to. My 87 year old mom still subscribes.

[Buckeye McFrog]

back are timeless classics like “I Am Joe’s Lymph Node” and “Can We Trust Bermuda?”

[bilhosty]

I hadn’t seen the Readers digest in years. I know it started to go liberal and then it dropped out of sight. I looked it up on line to see if it was still there and they did have a web page. I finally found it in a store and it did seem to be conservative again but it was only a shadow of its old self.

[warsaw44]

I recall enjoying the RDs from the 1950s!~

the humor articles were fun too. A nice break from working for $2.10 an hour for a farmer whom I could barely understand.

Had the thickest damn Maine accent of all time!

[Squantos]

I worked on farm as a teen and had to throw 60 pound bale of hay 12 high before he’d hire me. He was Italian and also had a bit of a lost translation problem that was cured with point and boot to the butt if we were confused too long.....:o)

Back when hard work was required to stay employed.

Stay safe !!

[Jemian]

Waaay back, many, many years ago, RD had as its pledge something like this: an article a day, of enduring quality. That was abandoned. Their Increase Your Word Power has been dumbed down to possibly a fifth grade vocabulary and much of what is in there is just plain boring.

I quite subscribing back in the late 80s, I think and have even quite buying the occasional copy from the grocery story. They will have to go quite a ways before I re-subscribe. I think the last sentence of the article is prophetic: If the reboot is simply a case of liberals putting out a magazine that they think will win over conservatives, then the Digest will continue its sad and drawn-out death spiral.

[rawhide]

RD lost me as a subscriber a few years when they went liberal. I’m not sure they can reverse that trend. I remember when the founders sold-out to a liberal company. I knew it was downhill from there on out. Doesn’t the liberal company still own them?

[warsaw44]

If the reboot is simply a case of liberals putting out a magazine that they think will win over conservatives, then the Digest will continue its sad and drawn-out death spiral.

---

ha! I can see it now-
Liberal editors: “ Hmm...maybe we should do a profile on the Holocaust shooter. Conservatives would love to read an article on one of their own “

Yikes a’mighty!

[Zionist Conspirator]

I hope so. RD used to be a really good magazine before they went People. I hope this means they're returning to their roots.

[Richard Kimball]

If the editor has a picture of 0bama in her office, I’m passing.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***A nice break from working for $2.10 an hour for a farmer whom I could barely understand.***

$2.10 an hour! In the 1950s? In this area ag workers got .25 cents an hour!

I wonder if Carolyn Davis will still send me lots of mail that I have won millions the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes...if my number matches blah blah blah, which is the best reason not to subscribe!

[Gerish]

Stop subscribing years ago - half the pages were drugs ads with two pages of explanation, such a waste.

[NewHampshireDuo]

I haven’t seen a copy of RD in years also but I did read it in my younger days and it was a good traditional values magazine from what I remember. Heck, I might get a subscription too.

[jwparkerjr]

Reader's Digest was one of the few magazines my family subscribed to when I was growing up in rural America in the 1950’s. I read every issue and can still remember some articles and jokes that read from it in 1954!

I have seen a copy in the last few years. Last time I looked at one it was so foreign from what I knew RD to be that I simply put down and moved along to the candy section.

I remember being fascinated by the fact they actually PAID for contributions to their various departments such Life in These United States, Humor in Uniform and so on.

I would love for my grandkids to have the joy of getting it and enjoying it like I did!