Magazine publishing: An awful, horrible decision

Posted: October 10th, 2007 | By Ray Hartley | Posted in General | Tagged as , , , , , ,
  • 11 Comments
  

THE Magazine Publisher’s Association of South Africa has just made a very bad decision. They have reconfirmed Media24′s Patricia Scholtemeyer as MPASA chair at a board meeting, according to a report on bizcommunity. I don’t know Scholtemeyer personally and I have no axe to grind with her, but unless I’m very much mistaken, she has just presided over the biggest circulation scandal in the history of magazine publishing in this country. No fewer than 12 publications under Scholtemeyer have been suspended by the Audit Bureau of Circulations for inflating their numbers. The problem was uncovered during routine audits done by the ABC on magazine numbers.
As journalists, we are hyper-critical of public figures who don’t fall on their swords when irregularities are revealed. We should not be silent when the publishing world is exposed for similiar offences.

Related posts:

  1. The Times: 126 413 circulation and climbing fast
  2. Miriam Makeba’s incredible letter to Time magazine
  3. A new threat to media freedom
  4. Google’s very simple lesson for online publishing
  5. The year of publishing dangerously

 

Comments

 

sneakia24

October 10, 2007 at 8:08 pm

I r not amused. I can like to meet this Hartleyr in the vleis and bliksem him off his high perd.

 

Sarah Britten

October 10, 2007 at 8:23 pm

Ms Scholtemeyer was given an award for being woman of the year in media earlier this year. I atteded the function. In fact, I think I even blogged about it.

I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

 

Justin Hartman

October 10, 2007 at 11:42 pm

Its a sad day for the Media sector in this country. I saw the shock news on Biz and I must admit this woman should have lost her job, never mind the Chair at MPASA.

Having worked at Media24 magazine division in the past I know how involved Patricia is with “her” magazines and in particular the circulation of them so I’m struggling to come to grips with the fact that she knew nothing of this scandal prior to it breaking.

 

Sarah Britten

October 11, 2007 at 9:52 am

I wonder if The Media – the magazine that bestowed this award on her – will cover this issue.

 

Justin Hartman

October 11, 2007 at 10:09 am

Just got this from Simone @ Biz where Caxton weighs in on the circulation saga:
http://tinylink.co.za/891c73

 

Media26

October 11, 2007 at 11:26 am

It’s outrageous. Magazine publishers have very, very detailed information on their sales – to the point that they know how many copies were sold in each individual outlet. While Scholtemeyer would not be involved at the same level as a circulation manager, I find it very hard to believe she had no idea at all. This is bad for all magazines, even those outside of Media26. Sorry. Media24.

 

Sarah Britten

October 11, 2007 at 11:54 am

Heh heh, good one.

 

Bonginkosi

October 11, 2007 at 3:08 pm

Don’t you love the way business is such an ‘old boys’ club’? People in business are always so scared to break ranks and go against their brethren. Only to think that we place so much trust in them. She is probably high up there amongst the people you wouldn’t want to offend i magazine publishing.

And somehow we find it so surprising that the judges don’t want to break rank with one of their own? We also are surprised when none of the soccer bosses bar one or two speak out against the infamous R 10m/person commissions.

 

Simone Puterman

October 11, 2007 at 4:40 pm

So many different sides to the story…

Talking about Caxton, my editor’s blog post on how the ABC is handling this is also worth reading: The ABC of crisis management…

 

Ray Hartley

October 11, 2007 at 5:17 pm

Simone – dead link. But I have read it …

 

Simone Puterman

October 11, 2007 at 5:27 pm

Dead link? Or did you correct it for me, since I clicked on it and it works fine? Or is it that WordPress database connection error? *sigh*

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