While the MPA's board of directors meeting on Sunday--held in Puerto Rico on the eve of this week's American Magazine Conference--largely took care of housekeeping, including the matter of transferring MPA chairmanship duties to Jack Kliger, president/CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Media, the board was given a preview of the highly anticipated changes to the American Society of Magazine Editors' editorial guidelines.
The new guidelines, which were unveiled by Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker, who also serves as ASME chairman, are an effort to both simplify and update a complex maze of rules. They address pressing issues such as product placement and sponsorship opportunities, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Though there are modifications to the rules, which will be announced late Monday morning, what has not appeared to change is that "repeated and willful violations will result in public sanction and disqualification from the National Magazine Awards," according to a document obtained by Mediaweek.
ASME's refinements, which are sure to be a hot topic of debate, include:
* Taking a firm stand against placing products in stories in exchange for payment or ads. Nevertheless, crediting, which fashion and shopping magazines do on a monthly basis, will be permitted as long as those pages remain under editorial control. Moreover, a clause on Special Advertising Sections will allow for product placement in advertorials that have been labelled either "Advertising" or "Promotion."
* While sponsorship guidelines continue to forbid any language such as "sponsored by" or "presented by" in any recurring features in regular issues of magazines, the new rules allow sponsorship of non-recurring editorial features such as special issues, inserts and onserts, as long as such sponsorships are clearly slugged as advertising. The guidelines also allow sponsorship of award shows and conferences, and there is no requirement to label it as such on either advertising or editorial pages.
* Also, editorial content cannot appear to endorse the products or services in advertising that runs just before or after them. It will be up to the magazines to determine the distance between the placement of these pages.
Meanwhile, more than 650 publishing executives are expected to attend a series of panels discussing what's in store for the future of magazines.
At the Sunday evening welcome reception, publishers discussed a variety of topics expected to be debated over the two-day conference, including deploying content across more digital platforms, and the notion of renaming magazine execs "brand
managers, given the multi-platform extensions that are now commonplace.
Also this weekend, independent and Hispanic publishers gathered at two separate day-long events: the Hispanic Magazine Summit on Oct. 15, followed by the Independent Magazine Group (MPA-IMAG) meeting on Oct. 16.
Execs who attended the Hispanic Summit noted how fast the Latino market is expanding. According to the National Directory of Magazines, the number of Hispanic titles has increased to 113 in 20004 from 46 five years prior, and a number of major publishers have launched or are developing Hispanic titles this year, including Meredith Corp.'s Siempre Mujer. And publishers at the MPA-IMAG luncheon pondered how magazines could better service their readers beyond simply providing information on a page.
