Does Quality Always Win?

Jane Friedman at 2012 National Magazine Awards
Jane at 2012 National Magazine Awards (NYC)

I had the very good fortune of attending this year’s National Magazine Awards in New York City. Even though I’m not yet officially on staff of the Virginia Quarterly Review, I was able to tag along and see if any of the three nominations would turn into wins. (Sadly, not this year.)

The final award of the evening was given to Time, as Magazine of the Year. The editor who came up to accept said, “We will win in the long run. Quality wins.”

What did he mean by that?

I’m not really sure. Presumably “we” refers to the magazine industry, and magazines will win because they put out quality material unlike … who? Bloggers like myself? Online-only publications? Atavist? Salon? Huffington Post? Flipboard? Netflix? Google? Amazon? Apple? Wikipedia? Cable television? All of the above?

What comes to mind is a recent column by David Brooks. He has a unique argument to make about why we ought to move away from the “competition” mindset that’s prevalent in our culture:

Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it. The profit margins are much bigger, and the value to society is often bigger, too.

[We’re] talking about doing something so creative that you establish a distinct market, niche and identity. You’ve established a creative monopoly and everybody has to come to you if they want that service, at least for a time.

That probably hasn’t provided an ounce of clarity, has it?

But I sure would like to know why a magazine might feel threatened in such a way that it must defiantly insist, “Quality wins!” Would it not be more valuable, as Brooks points out, to establish a distinct market, niche, and identity? (Especially if you’re media agnostic about it?)

I hope everyone will discuss in the comments, especially your thoughts on whether quality always wins.

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Joe Bunting

Good article, Jane. Obviously quality doesn’t win. If it did, people would still be paying fortunes for handmade, hand-illustrated books made by monks. Instead, people pay a fraction because the technology (and, thus, business model) changed. I wonder how many monks couldn’t sell their beautiful, high quality books, and complained, “But my books are better quality.”

TNeal

 That depends on the item. Quality often involves few sales but excellent pricing. I have a cousin who paints gorgeous landscapes. He doesn’t sell many but, when he sells a painting (and he does), he earns a living. I don’t even ask his prices because I know I can’t afford them.

I read about a book that sold for $4,000. Who would pay that much for a single book? Collectors.

Quality can sell, even hand-illustrated books made by monks, if you know your target consumer and reach them.

Joe Bunting

Sure. I agree with that. I guess the question then is, what’s more profitable, quality or scalability? And of course, every artist strives for both. They have their originals and their postcards. 

That doesn’t seem to be TIMEs problem though. They’re scaled. They don’t have a signed first edition they can sell for a small fortune. Maybe they should.

Phil Simon

Joe is right. Case in point: Jersey shore. Quality sometimes prevail with the help of good fortune.

Catherine Johnson

Great analysis, Jane. I know a couple of small businesses that have really taken off with that mindset.

David YB Kaufmann

No, quality doesn’t always win, at least not when it counts. And Brooks’s comment doesn’t offer much clarity: creating a new market is competitive, and dominating it more so. (Consider the personal computer or tablets.) Sounds like the editor felt his status threatened. The discussion also sounds rather academic: some tenured professors turf-protecting, other professors – tenured or not – actually thinking they can positively impact students, students creating chaotic mazes intellectual and social, and administrations playing hardball moneyball. Ask a general, usually the hardest part of a war is creating and maintaining supply lines and chain of command. 

florence fois

Sadly Jane, I do not believe that quality always wins. I also believe that quality can be found in all of the choices we have in our modern world. There is a tendency to believe that the speed or convenience of our cyber world automatically translates into “easy” or “not as good as.” Nothing can be farther from the truth. Quality does not diminish based on how it is communicated.

Has print journalism fallen victim to the mad rush for instant gratification? Perhaps, but there is still a great deal to be said for Glimmer Train and other lit magazines. What we might need to do with so much overkill and the girth of information blasting through space, it to be more selective … this will ensure quality at every level.

Jane Friedman

It will be interesting to see what tools develop to help us be more selective … And what criteria will be used to measure quality. (Especially when just-good-enough is exactly the quality we need … Or when it’s harmful.)

Clive Strugnell

In my opinion quality is a valuable component of any product or service which adds to the value of that product. If the product is then marketed effectively using the quality component as one of the main benefits of buying or using it, it will successfully compete in it’s marketplace. Also quality is usually easily discernable through the performance and longevity of the product, and provides the most valuable sales promotional aspect there is..word of mouth endorsement.

WhtchplVampire

Ahhh…in this case, and this is solely my humble opinion without one shred of evidence, I think Time magazine may feel threatened because it has in many ways lost touch with the reading public. Is this true of magazines in general? I don’t believe it is, but as you alluded, there is a plethora of other sources for news, and a host of “niche” magazines. Time feels particularly threatened, I believe, because it has tilted too far to the left in its reportage and has shown its petticoats, so to speak. But then again, that is just my opinion.

Jane Friedman

I think you make a great point.

I also think the subtext was: Quality magazines that you’re supposed to pay for are threatened by free content elsewhere that is presumably lower quality yet still manages to satisfy readers’ needs.

TNeal

I recently self-pubbed a novel, “Dark Eyes, Deep Eyes.”  A local journalist had already interviewed another self-pub author earlier in the week and, after previewing the book, she had no desire to give the book any newspaper space. She found any plausible excuse (meaning anything the author would believe) to not do a write up on it (we have a small-town weekly). She was pleasantly surprised to find my book engaging and well done (having an excellent editor on board helps tons!).

In a short exchange during her interview of me, I learned the importance of quality. I know slack work and excellent writing both garner my attention. I will be decisive about both–choosing to ignore the former while embracing the latter.

Bonnie Jean

No, Quality does not “always win” and it will continue to be increasingly  harder for quality to win until someone figures out what the magic button is for funding free-to-the-consumer quality content.(Insert shoulder shrug here, because I dunno)  I just had this conversation on Wednesday. A friend told me, “If  an article I want to read requires a subscription then I just keep surfing until I find the info I’m looking for, for free.”

The Career Builder ad should read:
Innovation wanted – Publishing industry
Whatta ya got?

Vanessa

Quality does not always win. We have 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight to prove that, along with most reality television shows and landfills filled with products that broke quickly so we’d buy more.
I also didn’t read into it anything about the format of magazine vs. any of those other things you mentioned so much as I read that as content. To me, at least, and maybe it’s just that my entire mindset is that whether it’s paper or digital, handwritten or typed, on a kindle or in a library, it doesn’t matter, that’s all just a method of delivery. After all, what distinguishes one print mag from another? It’s not the paper it’s printed on, it’s what’s inside.

Quality of content wins? Well, not always. Awards, maybe, but in the long run, what’s more important to me is reaching your audience, expanding their minds, making them think. Educating them. So unless the award was a People’s Choice, I’m not convinced that Time really won anything of quality. __of the Year awards are worth the paper they’re written on. 🙂

Jane Friedman

100% agree about the value of that award!

Jamie Clarke Chavez

Perhaps what the Time editor should have said is “A good product wins.” Or maybe “Consumer trust [which springs from a good product] wins.” Because I do think the news magazines—particularly if, as Jane says, you are media agnostic about it—do a great job of presenting important news without bias (unless it is op-ed!) while also helping readers make sense of it. I think they do help shape intelligent public discussion. (Personally, I prefer Newsweek to Time, but I grew up with Newsweek and have subscribed for 40 years myself.) I absolutely DO believe, though, that quality wins (in the long run, as this person noted)… or can survive in the marketplace.