A Cultural Icon Ceases Print

| May 13, 2014

Last week, an American cultural icon ceased print publication.  After 60 years, Jet Magazine announced last Wednesday that it was moving to an all-digital business model.  It will cease publishing a printed edition.

I’ll be the first to admit that Jet wasn’t my “cup of tea”.  But I did on occasion look at it – and when I was younger, it was fairly common.

Jet was indeed a US cultural icon.  In its early days, it was instrumental in helping the Civil Rights movement get traction, publishing the photos of Emitt Till’s badly disfigured body to show how he’d been abused when he was killed.  And it provided Black America with a source of news and commentary not readily found elsewhere.

Declining readership finally did Jet in.  Recent years haven’t been kind to most brick/mortar/paper magazines, and Jet was no exception.

The US will survive without Jet, of course.  And one can argue whether it’s a loss worth mourning or not.

But regardless of ancestry, IMO we’ve all lost something.  I can’t help but feel we’ve lost a bit of Americana with Jet’s passing.

Category: Geezer Alert!, Pointless blather, Who knows

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2/17 Air Cav

Never read a word of it. It was about the size of TV Guide, at least it was 40 + years ago. It had one thing going for it: a bikini-clad honey in every issue. I guess you could say it was my introduction to interracial love–or, at least, lust.

Wesley Wilson AKA Enigma4you

I believe that when things are needed they have a way of coming into being.

Jet is a great example of that. It was needed and filled an important role. It was a cog in the wheel of the Civil Rights Movement and gave a voice to many who had never had a voice before.

But with all thing it must evolve or end. I hope its evolution looks to the past for its place in the future.

C2Show

JET use to be cool to look at the women (JET Models) in bikinis when I was younger and the ladies talking about their goals and dreams.

Havent read a JET mag though in about 15 years I have to say. Almost forgot about them.

mike

I loved the jet beauty of the week. Long live black journalism. This mag inspired me to get more politically involved. I found out about oj Simpson getting off there.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

It’s not just Jet that’s struggling, print media is suffering throughout the nation. Most magazines that are successful today are either pop culture or targeted to a narrowly defined set of consumers who are interested in that specific topic.

Magazines and newspapers were once the only source of information readily available to the general public, as the internet and its’ bath house of unreliable clap trap has grown there has been a direct correlation in declining readership. You rarely hear people talking about the latest book they read, at work all I hear about from my younger colleagues are the latest idiotic summaries of sitcoms or what Bill Maher or John Stewart had to say.

I mentioned that I was thrilled to find at a book store closing an out of print edition of Richard Jablonski’s “B-17” complete with segments of the classified pilot manual in the back of the book and relatively good condition, one of my younger coworkers asked why I didn’t just read about that topic online as there would be more options to choose.

Lots of these younger folks are smart, well educated in their specific focus areas and fun to work with but (here comes the cranky old fart comment) less well read regarding classic literature and a lack of desire regarding anything older than this morning’s tweets.

Not true of all of them I know, but the nation overall seems to have the attention span of a 3 year old jacked up on sour patch kids….

trapperfrank

I can remember Ebony and Jet magazines very well. Ebony considered itself a version of Life magazine for blacks and looked down on Jet as low class. Jet did appeal to a lower class, but they had the hotter women in it.

jerry920

Hey, similar topic, is there anyone besides me old enough to remember when Soldiers magazine had pinups on the last page?