My inbox, on any given day, contains The Nation advisory, a dispatch from The Boston Review, and a host of link requests and post pointers. And I love and honor them all. But I'm surprised that my mailbox doesn't contain the same. I know, for instance, that The Washington Monthly sends each issue to every Senator, Congressman and major media personality in the hopes that their coverage will influence the influencers and receive a more visible perch in the wider debate. So I'm surprised that The Monthly and it's competitors aren't showering bloggers in issues, especially considering that our whole game is trolling for interesting and/or provocative reporting that we can use to fuel our writings. If TNR really is serious about attracting subscribers to TNR Digital, wouldn't it make sense to let a few publicizers inside their gates so the locked articles can be teased to a wider audience?
My self-interest aside (and with my list of magazine subscriptions, this shift wouldn't help me for awhile yet), it seems that these magazines, all of which are aware enough to field popular blogs, are really missing an opportunity to disseminate their content to a wider audience and thus attract interest from otherwise unaware readers. And, so far as I know, subscriptions are quite cheap to grant, much cheaper than the advertisements TNR use to place on Pandagon. I'd be shocked if anyone actually clicked through those ads, and I'm certain they were less effective than the times Jesse or I engaged TNR's content and directed readers to the site. Which I'd have probably done a lot if I was getting the magazine each week. Bloggers are unabashedly subjective in our coverage, whatever outlets we're reading worm their way into our posts. I'm surprised more don't want in.
So c'mon guys, be creative. It's for your own good. And mine.