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Magazine Media Conference in San Francisco

Event: Magazine Media Conference — AMC2012
Date: October 14-16, 2012
Location: Fairmont Hotel
950 Mason Street, San Francisco

About this Event: The annual conference of the Association of Magazine Media, AMC2012 will take place in San Francisco, the capital of technology and innovation. This year’s conference has been tailored to take advantage of the proximity to some of the most inventive companies. Attendees will hear from many media and technology leaders from the Bay Area with panel topics that include the changing role of the editor, exploring the ROI of social media, and helping magazine readers become active brand loyalists. Register by August 31st and save $200.

For More Information

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Geek Moms Offers Heroines for Boys

Nancy Gruver, a past EWIP board member, posted a link from Geek Moms on Facebook. It’s a listing of comics with strong female protagonists. Geek Mom’s intended audience for these comics? Their sons.

Geek Mom’s point is that boys don’t read books with girl heroines (usually), although girls do read books with boy heroes. Her advice? Catch ’em while they’re young and introduce them to strong, can-do girls.

Does anyone have any ideas why boys don’t cross over as much in fiction? Is it because girls have a broader empathic ability? Or is there a “cootie” factor going on?

Interesting to me that all the comics recommended are action/fighting/superhero type stuff. Which of course girls do read and like. Do other topics that interest girls (human relations, growing up) not interest boys so much? Is that another reason they don’t read girls in fiction?

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Time Takes on the Mommy Wars (Again)

Joe Berger took on Time Magazine in an interesting blog post called “Dear Time Magazine: Seriously?” He questions that appropriateness of using an edgy photo (the almost-four-year-old boy standing on a chair breastfeeding, with the cover line “Are you Mom Enough?”). Joe’s points were first, it isn’t news; second, it attempts to re-ignite the Mommy Wars to no one’s benefit; and third, this is the business of the mother, not the business of Time Magazine or its readers.

He makes a great point about the responsibility of the media, not just to jump on every bandwagon for every sale they can get but also to give some thought to what they are saying and selling.

Now its up to the newsstand readers to let us know what they think.

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A Ban on Dangerously Thin Models: Is the Issue Workplace Safety or Is It Free Speech?

Thanks to Bo Sacks for sending around an update to the Vogue Publishing breakthrough, wherein Vogue editors worldwide have agreed not to work with models who are dangerously thin.

From the Atlantic we learn that Israel has mandated that its publishers cannot legally work with dangerously thin models, or models who have eating disorders; now they also cannot airbrush models thinner.

Similar legislation could not easily be passed here, according to some first amendment experts, because it is an issue of free speech.

But is it? Or is this an issue of workplace safety? And has modeling become a high-risk, even a deadly, profession?