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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Adrift and rudderless, November 30, 2008
I carried a subscription to The Atlantic for about a year and a half (most of 2007 and 1/2 of '08), until I just couldn't justify the expense anymore. I generally have five or so magazine subscriptions during any given year, and my criteria for renewing is whether or not I consistently read the issues from cover to cover or not. If I find that I'm slogging through the articles, uninspired by the content, then I bid it a hasty farewell.
Because I subscribe to so many magazines, I'm bombarded by offers through the mail for every periodical you can think of, some of which I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. When I first began considering a subscription to The Atlantic, the biggest stumbling block was the price. I think Amazon's price is lower than what I was ever offered, which was thirty-five dollars a year, but since I was aware of the reputation and longevity of the magazine, I decided to make the plunge.
I had no difficulties receiving my issues, which from reading the other reviews sounds like a problem with Amazon, and not The Atlantic, so kudos to their subscription department. When I recieved my first issue, the publisher also sent me a small information packet about the magazine, which I was very surprised to get. It explained how to read the address label on the magazine (something that was new information - to me, at any rate) to keep track of when the subscription ended, and where to find an account number. It also gave directions on how to end my subscription, should I ever find that necessary. Which I did.
One more note about how The Atlantic's subscription dept. works. Your subscription will be automatically renewed when the previous one runs out, and if you purchase the first sub. with a credit card, they'll simply bill you and you won't miss an issue. I understand why a business might want to operate this way, but as a consumer, I'm not a big fan of this practice. If I don't want the product anymore, I don't like the onus being on me to stop being billed for it. I'd much rather just let the whole relationship die a quiet, peaceful death.
That's the technical details, none of which affected my decision to end my subscription. That decision was based on the magazine's content and editorial direction.
Right away, I noticed I was having a difficult time finishing the magazine. At first, I accepted that the problem was probably me - I needed to get more comfortable with the magazine's format and recurring contributors. As I said, I subscribe to several different magazines during any given year, and usually there are one or two general interest, a literary journal, and some woodworking journals. The problem I had with The Atlantic was that each subject they covered - whether it concerned Torture in Iraq, Terrorists in the Phillipines, or The American Idea - each seemed to offer no new insights and which I frankly found to be boring. Their recurring features section, which included reviews of upcoming books, film, etc, seemed rushed and incomplete. I'd much rather read the full review on 1 book that intrigues me enough to buy or check it out than a sentence about 100 books that tell me nothing more than the bought and paid for blurb on the back cover. The magazine did approach each subject from a more centrist view than some of the other current event magazines (like Harper's liberal agenda, which I don't always agree with but I find infinitely more entertaining), but perhaps they needed a firm stance on something - it seemed as though everything went through a bland meter before publication to test out it's blah factor.
Additionally, I am an avid letter column reader. I like to hear responsible critiques and viewpoints to articles I've recently read. But I noticed a strange and what I thought was a cowardly trend in The Atlantic's letter pages: after almost every critical letter, the original auther responded, defending his article. Occasionally this can be interesting, but when it happens after almost every letter, I begin to think that if the authors have to explain this much, then they didn't do a very good job of it the first time around. Cumulatively, it had the effect of making the contributors sound defensive and whiny.
There are two issues in particular that eventually made me drop my subscription. The Atlantic began celebrating their 150th anniversary during my year and a half with them, which culminated in a double-sized 'American Idea' issue. It gathered an impressive number of thinkers and writers who were asked to submit a short essay on what they believed 'The American Idea' was. These essays ranged in size, but most were limited to a paragraph or two. I don't understand how anyone could think this exercise was worth the printing cost. I couldn't even get through it. Anything that may have been worthwhile would have been buried in the dross of gum flapping. And anything worthwhile would surely be worth more than two paragraphs.
The issue that finally put the nail on the coffin though was the Brittany Spears issue. I went to my mailbox and pulled out what looked like a People magazine, with a picture of Ms. Spears in dark glasses and obviously wanting to be left alone except some idiot was jumping in front of her flashing a camera. I was embarrassed that my postman had to deliver it. To be fair, I read the article, which concerned itself about the paparazzi that follow Ms. Spears around and generally make her life hell. Too bad for her. Since I consider paparazzi and entertainment magazines to be one of the rotting boils on the backside of this 'American Idea', I called up The Atantic's subscription department (with the handy number that came with the info package at the beginning) and cancelled.
If you like Ms. Spears, then there are plenty of outlets to get your fill of her. Personnally, I'd like to know how to purge my mind of this incessent celebrity culture injected into society's stream of consciousness anyway, but until they find a way to do that, I certainly don't want to be reminded of it any more than I have to. Especially from a magazine that ought to be focused on events more important than the plight of paparazzi. Poor little fellers.
Truth be told, I was expecting the hardsell when I called to cancel the subscription, but the operator was very succinct, and asked no questions and did not try to dissuade me. I don't know if she was getting used to those calls by then or not. Probably not. The bar for current events and important news items in this country is lowered every day - but in my version of the 'American Idea', there wouldn't be venerable institutions such as The Atlantic taking part.
Try this magazine one issue at a time. Perhaps someday it will find its direction again and steer by the light it has lit in the past. For now, though, I think it is adrift at sea, looking for something solid on which to ground itself.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intellectually Stimulating and Highly Anticipated Each Month, June 25, 2008
The Atlantic is an intellectual magazine and one that I have been reading on and off for many years. This magazine is best known for its political/current events/social articles that tackle some tough issues of the day and it delivers most effectively when it's offering some commentary on world events and social issues and these are the articles I turn to first when I read The Atlantic. I like the political articles best, but there are plenty of other non- political yet very thoughtful articles in each issue.
Most every article in The Atlantic is thoughtful and well- written. Look closely at the authors of some of the stories in this magazine and you will notice some high- profile names on more than one occasion. Christopher Hitchens, Mark Bowden, Eric Schlosser, and others are known to contribute an article or two in each issue of The Atlantic. These writers, and others like them, are ready to offer their take on some of the critical issues of the day.
The Atlantic certainly offers some interesting, thoughtful, intellectual articles and one fact that sets them apart from those found in most other magazines is that the featured articles are often very long- sometimes exceeding ten pages in length. Most magazines shy away from articles this long because they know that most reader's have an attention span that is far too short to finish the entire piece of reading in one sitting. But The Atlantic is different. If the subject matter is such that an article needs to be ten- plus pages in order to thoroughly cover everything, then The Atlantic is quick to oblige. I appreciate the excellent coverage but I must admit that some articles are almost too long. Even when I have an interest in the subject matter, I often end up stopping halfway through because I cannot hold my attention any longer.
Another section I like in The Atlantic is the book reviews section. To present a fair and balanced perspective, The Atlantic reviews new books from many different genres and I like that there are different reviews of varying lengths. One section of The Atlantic called Cover to Cover includes short summaries of many different books. These are nice when you don't have time to read a lengthy review of a book and just want the basics. But there are also some very long book reviews in The Atlantic, along with some advertisements for new books that include a short, 50 to 100 word summary of the book. I like reading the reviews, but I like this section best for its exposure to new book releases. It is like looking at a quick rundown of intellectual books and I have, in fact, discovered some very good titles from this part of the magazine.
Overall, The Atlantic ranks among my favorite magazines and I look forward to some serious, intellectual reading in each issue. I admit that some articles are a tad too lengthy, but I still like The Atlantic for its intellectual stimulation and for its focus on current events. It's a very good magazine for cerebral types who like to read about politics and social issues.
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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great magazine gone bad, August 14, 2008
I began subscribing to the Atlantic around the time of start of the war in Afghanistan, and was an ardent fan. I loved the reporting by James Fallows and Mark Bowden, Mark Steyn's obits, and Christopher Hitchens' erratic but occasionally terrific stuff. It was literary, combative, intelligent, centrist but never doctrinaire. But after a few years I noticed a worrying development. Stories kept cropping up that I suppose were meant to attract a young female readership. They were about boring subjects like healthcare and organic food. There was an editorial slant that was indistinguishable from the NYT or Slate. They ran a cover story about the shortage of good nannies and later an adulatory profile of Barack Obama. Steyn disappeared. The month I cancelled my subscription, Britney Spears was on the cover. I read later that the magazine was taken over by a new publisher around the time it went bad, and it had a callow young editor who was on a drive to raise circulation. Rather than screwing up the content of the magazine, they should have fixed their subscription department. At one stage I had four subscriptions going-- 3 of them gifts to friends, because I was such a fan. When I started a subscription or changed my address, it would take 5 or 6 months for the changes to be carried out. Even responding to my enquiries took weeks. -- A young female reader.
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