Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1959)

LEO WAS MISQUOTED . . . HERE IS ^ Chicago adman Burnett says his critical remarks on magazines were reported inaccurately in the press. . . . To set the record straight here is the full text of his much-discussed speech to the Magazine Publisher's Association in N. Y. last week I suppose this is an occasion for wrapping the flag around ourselves and thinking noble thoughts, but I have some very strong notions about magazines which I think may be of special interest to this group. And now that I have the floor. I propose to keep it for the next few minutes. Maybe you won't speak to me when I leave the room. But it is only because I have such respect for magazines and their potentiality, which I hope I have demonstrated over the yeqrs, that I feel so deeply on the subject. Never in my 40 years in the advertising business have I seen magazines generally so blind in their mission of life. What is a magazine? Webster's New International Dictionary describes it as follows: a periodical containing miscellaneous papers, especially critical and descriptive articles, stories, columns, etc. designed for the entertainment of the general reader. Magazines are now often specialized for classes of readers, as for children or types of subject as geography, popular science, poetry, etc. I think the people who write dic tionaries must be very dull. Now I'll give you my definition. Among all forms of communication, magazines are the greatest single hope this country has for provoking thought, advancing culture and improving taste at a time when the country needs to read and think as it never did before. Yet here is what I feel. Never in my experience have I seen such bitter and destructive selling as now exists. Not only in the advertising business, but particularly in the magazine industry. I refer particularly to the mad race to provide the most of 36 SPONSOR 12 DECEMBER 1959