SOF Goes Digital; Last Print Edition April 2016

Ammoland ^ | 9 March, 2016 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

The April, 2016, edition will be the final print edition of Soldier of Fortune magazine.  The magazine was started in 1975 by Robert K. Brown, and has been a resounding success.  The end of the print edition does not mean the end of SOF.  It means that SOF has made the successful transition from dead tree status to that of totally recycled electrons.  Not many publications have been able to make such a successful transition.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the SOF website had 430,000 unique visitors in January, and has almost a million followers on facebook.  From wsj.com:

Its website has limited traffic, attracting 430,000 unique visitors in January, according to comScore Inc. But its Facebook page is frequently updated and has nearly a million followers.

I am not surprised that SOF has been able to make a successful transition to a purely digital format.  SOF has always been an new media outlet.  It was one of the leading and early manifestations of new media, that was not invested in the ethos of the “progressive” movement.

I became aware of SOF fairly early, about 1977. When I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, the official student newspaper, ran a “review” of SOF.  I read the review.  The reviewer was so infused with political correctness that they based the entire review on one advertisement inside the front cover of the magazine.  Then the reviewer bragged that he had not read a single word of a single article in the magazine.

I was incensed.  I found a copy of the magazine, read it cover to cover, and renewed my subscription.  Then I wrote to the Cardinal and

[marktwain]

SOF was one of the first "new media" not politically correct news sources.

[Nextrush]

I read a few issues and remember buying them off the shelf at a local bookstore.

I was a voracious consumer of old media like shortwave radio, magazines etc. looking for the ‘other side of the story’.

[Iron Munro]

Magazines and newspapers that were common, everyday items to us will be something our great-grand kids will only see as ancient curiosities on display in museums.

The way we look a scrolls and clay tablets today.

Except the common paper they are printed on won’t prove to be as durable as vellum, sheepskin, papyrus or clay.

[Tupelo]

Funny thing back in the mid to late 1970s, I was probably the guy that printed those SOF that Dean Weingarten writes about.
It was always an adventure when the SOF staff showed up for a color OK. There were usually three or four and every damn one was armed. Not something usually seen in Denver in the 1970s. I always thought it was more for show for pasty faced art directors to be carrying a Model 29 or a 1911 in a shoulder holder into a hot noisy pressroom. Always in a shoulder holster, never on the hip. I thought it was maybe was to reinforce their image of tough guys. Kinda like many of today’s biker groups.

[archy]

I always thought it was more for show for pasty faced art directors to be carrying a Model 29 or a 1911 in a shoulder holder into a hot noisy pressroom. Always in a shoulder holster, never on the hip. I thought it was maybe was to reinforce their image of tough guys.

Not at all. Remember the old TV cop show Barney Miller?, about a squadroom of New York City police detectives?

And one in particular, Detective Fish, played by character actor Abe Vigoda, was the only one of the crew who wore/used a shoulder holster? The old guy...Ever wonder why that was?

A hint: recall too, that he was the one frequently heading for the men's room for a sit-down session. A shoulder rig works better than a hip holster if you have a lot of that sort of thing on the agenda.

[Travis McGee]

I have been a proud advertiser in SOF for many years.

[Squantos]

Pamwe Chete .....:o)

[Travis McGee]

Yeah. It was a long run.

[archy]

Pamwe Chete .....:o)

I will buy you a sweet banana.

[Squantos]

Now ya made me cry......:o)

[archy]

Now ya made me cry......:o)

Tighten up, lad. There's men's work to be done, and precious few of us left to be doing it.