I happened across this excellent article from Salon, written upon the ascension of James Kaminsky to the editorship of Playboy in 2002. It's right on the money, as far as
--what the best magazines used to be;
--why that worked for them, artistically AND financially;
--why they changed to what they are now;
--and why that destroys them, quickly or slowly, one-by-one.

The major problem with American magazines is that they have no idea what they should be--what they do better than other media. If they identified those things, and provided them consistently, intelligently, almost ruthlessly, they would begin to thrive again, in print, pixels or both.

Read this article…