MEMO FROM THE EDITOR
MEMO from the Editor Lean and Hungry Perceptive readers—and we're sure all of The Progressive's readers are perceptive—will have noticed that last month's issue was a bit thinner than usual. So...
...This magazine deals, after all, with current developments...
...And from Columbus...
...If you can renew your subscription now, regardless of when it expires, you'll help us weather a crisis while protecting yourself against the next increase in renewal rates...
...Ohio, comes a reproach: "Why the lack of communication...
...In fact, it may be a while before we can restore the magazine to its accustomed girth...
...The revenue we derive from subscriptions and a few other sources—including contributions from The Progressive's devoted subscribers—simply hasn't kept pace with inexorably climbing costs...
...Meanwhile, we hope you'll bear with us...
...We'll keep on doing our best with the resources at hand, publishing a magazine that may be leaner but isn't lite...
...If you can afford to extend some support to The Progressive above and beyond the regular price of your subscription, your help will never be more welcome—or more urgently needed—than it is right now...
...That's what's going on here, and now that I've told you, let me suggest a few things you might want to do about it: 11 If you don't subscribe to The Progressive—if you're reading this in a library or have borrowed a friend's copy or have bought the magazine on a newsstand-please consider entering your own subscription...
...One obvious way to cut our losses would have been to drop one or more issues of The Progressive...
...How come...
...I, too, miss the puzzle...
...So far, we have received surprisingly few complaints—not even a dozen—and a couple of readers have actually written that they prefer having less to read, especially in the summer months...
...My judgment is that we've succeeded reasonably well, though I'll be much happier when we have restored the missing pages...
...What's going on up there...
...By cutting back, we can save upwards of $5,000 a month in paper, printing, and postage costs...
...The issue you are reading—thirty-two pages plus cover—is by no means the smallest we've ever published...
...Please address contributions to The Progressive, 409 East Main Street, Madison, WI 53703, and remember that donations to this nonprofit enterprise are tax-deductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code...
...We carefully weighed the pros and cons and decided we didn't want to go that route...
...a two-month interval between issues would be a severe disservice to readers...
...Managing Editor Matt Rothschild suggested that we take our cue from the breweries and promote the slenderized magazine as The Progressive Lite...
...Many "monthlies" now publish only eleven (or ten, or even nine) issues a year...
...So we reluctantly let it go...
...Use the bind-in card in this issue or any piece of paper...
...If you know someone who ought to be subscribing to The Progressive but isn't— a friend or relative, a student or teacher, a library or local editor—please think about ordering a gift subscription...
...in a reduced-size magazine, it would be an unjustifiable luxury...
...We've known since last fall, when we started working on The Progressive's operating budget for 1987, that we would have to take some drastic steps to close the gap between income and outgo...
...All of a sudden," writes a subscriber from Washington, D.C., "The Progressive has a lean and hungry look...
...Reducing the size of the magazine didn't exactly thrill us, but it seemed the preferable alternative...
...this was, in fact, The Progressive's standard size for many years...
...But our serious intent was to pack as much useful information, analysis, and commentary as possible into the smaller magazine...
...The complaints we have received center on the loss of The Progressive's puzzle, which Emily Rath-von and Henry Cox faithfully produced for more than seven years...
...it was one of my favorite features in the magazine, and I solved it every month on the pretext that I was checking it for typographical errors...
...A couple of readers actually ordered us to cancel their subscriptions because the puzzle was gone...
...But lately the norm has been a forty-eight-page magazine...
...What's going on is a severe financial squeeze—not the first in this magazine's long history and certainly not the last, but one that has forced us to tighten pur belts every way we can...
...So is this month's, and there is every likelihood that next month's will be, too...
...But our occasional reader surveys invariably showed that the other puzzle fans and I were distinctly in the minority: Most subscribers never even gave the puzzle a glance...
Vol. 51 • July 1987 • No. 7
