Paper Magazine
http://www.papermag.com
365 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
212/226-4405
Founded in 1984 by partners David Hershkovits and Kim Hastreiter, who continue as joint owners/editors/publishers, Paper magazine is a good place for dish about what's
going on in the Big Apple. Self-styled as "Where Things Start," Hershkovits says the magazine has a track record of spotting the next big thing, whether a consumer trend, a
fashion, artist or entertainment venue. The monthly magazine has a print run of about 100,000, with 70K sent to subscribers; the rest are distributed to newsstands, boutiques and
shops in over 30 states. The Web site, papermag.com, was started in 1995, and focuses much more on day-to-day life in the city. Hershkovits says the site has received as many as
800,000 impressions in a month.
Content/Channels
News and features in the mag present a stylish, well-informed and edgy take on living in NYC, with emphasis on the arts, music, fashion, theater and movies, along with witty,
gossipy columns about those on top, aspiring to the top, or just plain over the top. This is New York, so gay issues are mainstream here.
January's issue is devoted to Paper's "annual report," a city guide to New York, which last year was expanded to include Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Miami (other trendy towns), with no other editorial content. The April edition is the "beautiful people" issue, which takes up about a third of the pages. September
is dedicated to fashion. Some sections, such as Cyber, are run every other month or so.
Only the cover story and one or two features from the magazine are included on the Website. Hershkovits says there are frequent discussions about whether all of the magazine's
contents should be online, but once they make that decision it's irrevocable, so they continue to hold off. The site includes a daily area, a "guide to cool things," he says,
revolving around arts, fashion and shopping.
Pitch Tips
The magazine and Web site are not quite exclusively focused on New York City topics, but they are committed to the emerging culture, whatever that may be at the moment. If
there isn't some fresh way to approach a subject, don't bother.
Read the magazine before approaching any of the editorial staff. "What I like is to see that somebody's actually thought of something [and] knows who they're pitching to,"
Hershkovits says. The magazine remains small enough for a very decentralized organization; he recommends looking at the masthead for editors' names and choosing the appropriate
person to contact.
Hershkovits prefers to be pitched the old-fashioned way, via snail mail. Besides the letter, include clips and/or a sample paragraph to demonstrate the idea. As for email,
fuggedaboudit. "You get what you give - if you just knock off a quick email, that's all you're going to get back," he says.
Comments
Paper is intended to be a pop culture magazine for a general audience - not just music, or arts and entertainment, or fashion, but an amalgam of all of those, with a
strong dose of New York gossip thrown in. "There's such an appetite for gossip now, you almost have to do it. News is gossip," Hershkovits says. The Web site includes a very
'00s advice columnist - think drag, and we don't mean races.
The company put out a book last year, From Ab Fab to Zen, Paper's Guide to Pop Culture, which gives the best condensed essence of the magazine's style. As the MTV News
Gallery put it, Paper has a "heavy downtown chic flavor."