Quote, unquote: Why the magazine isn't dying

Magazines still offer an unsurpassed ability to marry literary ambitions with deep reporting, photography, and visual design. In this new media age, people talk about the importance of transforming readers into "communities." Magazines have never had a community problem. Great magazines have built enduring relationships with their readers that Facebook and Tumblr still aspire to. But in a race to grow their businesses, publishers put advertising first and editorial excellence second.

-- Gabriel Sherman, a contributing editor to New York and a special correspondent of the New Republic, writing in The Big Money blog for Slate magazine.