Andrew Sullivan’s plea for Atlantic print subscribers works
Andrew Sullivan has a built-in arsenal with his 100k+ readers a day on his blog, and last week he deployed it, arguing that The Atlantic had taken a risk by putting his open letter to George Bush on the cover.
“The MSM has largely moved on from this issue. The Atlantic hasn’t, because it’s one of the few magazines left that makes major editorial decisions that may not make sense commercially,” he wrote. “In this economic climate, especially with old media in crisis, a decision like that is understandably making some general interest magazines an endangered species.”
He made a plea for readers to reward the magazine by subscribing to its print edition, and the New York Times reports that it worked: “Within two days after last Monday’s post, Mr. Sullivan’s appeal pulled in 75 percent of the subscriptions that the Web site draws in a typical month, the magazine’s publisher, Jay Lauf, said. The Atlantic expects this month’s subscription orders to be double an average month’s.”
