The Antidote to Algorithms: Quality Storytelling
Print magazine resurgence speaks volumes about the importance of quality and depth in online nonfiction writing
You know that thing you do when you’re scrolling through the headlines and you hesitate to click on anything, because you know the investment in attention that’ll be required to paw through the ensuing blizzard of ads and pop-up videos and text-blocking teasers, all served up by algorithms tracking your online preference so they can serve you more ads and pop-up videos and text-blocking teasers?
I call it click aversion.
Some of us are rebelling. Publishers and media execs don’t want to hear this, but newsflash: Some of us are outright avoiding ad-driven media sites. We’re scrolling less. We’re not opening the apps. And we’re avoiding mainstream media sites altogether. Unique visitors to the online sites of the top 50 US newspapers dropped 20% in late 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, as just one example. Meanwhile, traffic to the most popular news websites overall—including newspaper sites but also others like CNN, Fox News and Axios—is also falling.
We’re looking for alternatives. We seek an antidote to the algorithms.
Here’s how bad the experience of reading online has become: Niche magazines are making a comeback. Yes, print!
The print resurgence is happening mostly among outdoor, travel and adventure topics, such as rock climbing, running and surfing, where there’s not only an avid, participatory audience but great stories to tell, and amazing photography to complement the words, explains New York Times writer John Branch. Many of the publishers of these glossy, thick, expensive magazines are survivors of the decades-long implosion of print media. For the most part, they’re not getting rich—some are getting by only thanks to large, ongoing patron donations to help cover printing costs.
The new print magazines have tapped into what Kade Krichko, founder of the slick biannual travel magazine Ori, calls the “slow-read movement” and the “antidote to the algorithm.”
Flooded with so much content poking at us from every direction, I’m among those recoiling from online.
Sure, I still spend hours online or on apps daily—for work, to look up how-tos, to watch highlights from a sporting event, to check breaking news—but I read fewer stories than I used to. The non-news stories I do read, on the ad-free platform Medium and on a handful of niche publications and newsletters, have to be really good to garner my attention, and the headlines have to sound 100% honest, not clickbaity. I’m an extremely picky clicker. I have moderate to severe click aversion.
I’ve even taken one foot out of the online world, to step back in time, media-wise.
Several months ago, I resubscribed to the print edition of the Sunday New York Times (which is, by the way, where I found the story about the new trend in print magazines). Each Sunday, my wife and I make coffee, ignore all our responsibilities, and settle in to read the newspaper. We find all those wonderful little gems that are virtually invisible online and in the apps, algorithmically buried deeper than I dare dig. (I love The Ethicist, for example, and I never miss Social Q’s. My wife gets all wrapped up in the long Magazine features.)
Invariably, we end up reading important news analyses, juicy little tidbits with no real bearing on life as we know it, and immersive features that we wouldn’t have clicked on in the off-print world for fear of being visually assaulted by that blizzard of ads and pop-up videos and text-blocking teasers.
The newfangled magazine publishers treat online as an aside or avoid it altogether. And they are finding enthusiastic, faithful subscribers willing to pay $25 or more per issue for high-quality, in-depth storytelling from periodicals, as Branch explains:
Like vinyl records and micro beers, they’re aimed at a small audience with appreciation for the craft. Most are at-home operations where the editors are owners, managing a web of freelancers and overseeing every bit of the production cycle. … many are expats from the wreckage of iconic glossy magazines that lost luster in an era of consolidation, venture capitalism and attention spans deemed too short to consume anything but algorithmic candy.
Back here in the online world, we writers can learn much from this shift in reader habits.
Unless you are an algorithm junkie, a so-called “content creator” chasing those ever-more-elusive clicks from search engines or social media, it’s way past time to get serious about writing better, deeper, richer articles. If you wish to succeed in today’s overstuffed media environment, if you wish to write sustainably by cultivating an audience and building a following, you must focus on one thing, and one thing only:
Quality storytelling.
Whether you self-publish, freelance for niche or mainstream publications, or otherwise string words together into articles that compete for eyeballs on the interwebs, whether you write short or long, and whatever your topics and style, your stories have to be deep and rich and compelling and honest. Readable. Enjoyable. Like what you might expect from the Sunday paper or a glossy niche magazine.
Don’t write for algorithms. Write for people. Write stuff you would want to read. Be the antidote to the algorithms.
So how do you do that? Here are just a few of the how-to articles in the Writer’s Guide archives:
Cheers,
Rob
PS: Read Branch’s story here. It’s some quality storytelling.
This is great and so timely. I am also a picky clicker! I don't have time to read stories that are full of ads, poorly, written, or kind of pointless in what they are sharing. I love a hard copy magazine or newspaper to read at breakfast. It's a relaxed experience and a relief from eyestrain. Good to hear that this option is returning.
$25 per issue? Is it the norm?
If that's the way, I can't see this as a trend in less affluent countries. And probably it can only remain a niche phenomenon in richer countries too