Sign of the Times: Reader's Digest Files Chapter 11

The once immensely popular Reader's Digest has announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. While its flagship magazine was once ubiquitous on checkout lines and in doctors' offices, it's been harder to find lately. As I read the news, "Reader’s Digest Plans Chapter 11 Filing," it occurred to me that I don't remember seeing the Digest during recent doctors visits, and I can remember seeing other magazine covers while standing on checkout lines, but I don't remember seeing Digest lately.

I'm not entirely surprised because the sort of condensed content that was the essence of Reader's Digest is now easily available online. In fact, unlike long-form journalism like The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, whose articles can be too long to read on a computer screen, the Reader's Digest format is ideal for the online age.

I think the only surprising thing is that Reader's Digest, which always condensed bestsellers, reached chapter 11. I would've thought it might have been able to condense the bankruptcy filings to Chapter 7.

The Deal Knocks the Journal on Top Business Gurus

In a recent article, The Deal takes the Wall St. Journal to task for ranking top business gurus. Entitled, "The wisdom racket (updated): The Wall St. Journal Discovers the Ingredients for Gurudum: Thin, Trendy, and Obvious and M&A Reporters Offer Dueling Punditry," The Deal said it noted "three signs of the apocalypse in a single story" because the Journal:

1. Presented the entire article on the front page of the Journal's Marketplace section.
2. The methodology behind the ranking, which basically consisted of tallying up the "Google hits, media mentions and academic citations" scored by a list of influential business thinkers.
3. And then the list includes NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, in spots No. 2 and No. 4, respectively. Meanwhile Michael Porter and Tom Peters, who topped a similar list in 2003, fell to Nos. 14 and 18, respectively.

Ok, I don't agree these are signs of the apocalypse, but I do have to agree that ranking based on Google hits isn't necessarily the most scientific method to ranking gurus by impact.

The article is available here.