We the amazed: I had already put Dan Gillmor’s new book, We the media, in my Amazon.com shopping cart when I received an e-mail telling me to check out pages 137-138. (It’s available free online in PDF files — pages 137-138 are in chapter 7.) Clicking away from Amazon, I read the following passage:

“On February 19, 2004, Rex Hammock was ushered into the Old Executive Office Building in Washington. He and four other small-business people sat down with President George W. Bush for a short discussion on economic issues. It was another in a series of Bush meetings with supporters of the administration’s policies. This one, unlike previous sessions, was closed to the press.

But what White House officials apparently didn’t now—or didn’t care if they did know—was that Hammock, owner of a small publishing company in Tennessee, was a citizen journalist in his own right. On his way back to the airport that day, he wrote on his laptop computer a long and somewhat rambling essay that he soon posted on his weblog. There was no breaking news, but rather a folksy kind of reporting. He wanted to report his impressions rather than discuss policy. “He is definitely not a wonk, but he knows clearly what he believes needs to happen for the country and its economy to prosper,”Hammock wrote of Bush. “I don’t think the circular arguments regarding ‘what ifs’ and ‘what abouts’ interest him. Nor me, for that matter.”

The blog posting, and the media coverage of what this citizen reporter had done in the absenceof standard media coverage, became a mini-story in its own right. One lesson was obvious: excluding The Media from coverage no longer necessarily means much.

Wow. Excuse me while I click over to Amazon.com to add a couple more copies of Dan’s book to my shopping cart.

Stock photo horror stories: After sharing this embarassing stock photo moment (found via adrants) with folks in the office, Bill Hudgins jogged my memory of a long-ago, pre-Hammock Publishing “stock photo horror story” that he and I experienced:

Our client had bought a company, and sent us a box of materials about the acquisition so we could learn about its business, which was processing mortgages. The acquisition’s slick brochure opened with an inside front cover spread of the famous Victorian houses in San Francisco. It was a beautiful picture - until you looked more closely and noticed there was a guy standing in an upstairs window, back to the camera, wearing only his fruit of the looms. We never told the client.

Custom publishing update: The National Urban League has partnered with T. Brown Publishing, Inc. to create a new nationally distributed publication, Urban Influence Magazine.

Quote:

Targeting today’s influencer, the young African American professional, this magazine will merge the need for social change and economic empowerment with an urban twist and stylish appeal.

They shoot horses, don’t they? MediaLife surveyed its readers, media planners and buyers, for advice for the new G+J CEO. I don’t think he’ll like their suggestion.

Quote:

The advice of Media Life readers in a poll last week: Dump Fast Company magazine. It’s a goner.

Ouch.

(via adrants)

Things you can do with a magazine ad: In the September issues of Car & Driver, Road & Track and Motor Trend, Volvo will include a “scent strip” in ads introducing its “invigorating new fragrance.” Under the strip, the reader can smell the aroma of “acrid burnt rubber.” Try that on a Google ad. (via adrants.com)

NPR does “niche-zine” thing: Morning Edition’s Jack Speer reports the “most new magazines don’t survive” story. (thanks, Blair)

Bless their hearts: I always give Tennessee-based magazines the benefit of the doubt so I will merely point to this Keith Kelly story about the publisher of American Magazine that went in and out of business last year. Its publishers have now licensed the “Chicken Soup” brand and are trying once more.

How to start a magazine: Throw it up against the refrigerator and see if it sticks. This MediaPost story by Michael Shields allows Rick LePage, president of the Mac publishing unit of IDG (that’s right, LePage) to be refreshingly transparent with his strategy for seeing if there’s a market out there for a magazine covering iPods and other MP3 playing devices. I’ll buy a copy.

Can’t get enough: Cosmo Style, a “13th issue special” will be coming soon to a newsstand near you. Okay. You’ve been warned.

Cat-a-zine fight: The whole shopping magazine thing keeps zipping past me. I leave town one day and I can’t’ keep up with who’s launching a new shopping magazine for kids or pets or whatever. (Personally, I’m a big fan of the Sky Mall catalog as it makes me realize there are lots of people out there who are really into purifying the toxic air in their homes…but again, that is not truly a cat-a-zine because the retailers pay to be in it, I guess.)

Anyway, yesterday I missed several stories about this viral category of magazines. Like, for instance, David Carr devoting his talents to writing a story about them. Or that Reuters knocked off Carr’s story and added that Conde Nast has increased the guaranteed circ of Lucky to one million. That’s right, one million. Lucky. And this morning, DM News follows-up the NYT and Reuters stories with its take on the Lucky knock-off from Hearst due out next week (thus, no longer a vaporzine) called Shop, etc.