Paddles Magazine = trouble

[Performance Kayaks]

Was it good cider? You should put in as a creditor for that loss...

I've got some rockin' Old Rascal on the go at the moment, jolly lovely.

Some local Beer first followed by a few of Ben Crossman's finest, courtesy of the mighty J.C. Back to Snooky's for some run-of-the-mill Thatchers Gold!

[Steve B]

Hmm clearly the tongue in my cheek was not seen across the North Sea. My comment due to the fact that Mark Nuttal blamed me for Paddles' demise yet still published the issue with me on the cover afterwards. Next time I should check that the satire of the situation is sufficiently apparent.

I must admit I didn't realise at first that you were being sarcastic/ironic - your comment makes a lot more sense now. It can be very difficult to get these things right when there's no tone of voice, no body language, no facial expression, and the reader only knows part of the background story.

[Chris W]

Speaking from experience Steve? ;-)

I'm just surprised that the demise of 'freepubs' has taken as long as it has. I assumed they were about to go under back in 2004 when I was started getting delays of up to 6 months in receiving payments.

Lest we forget, the launch of Paddles magazine in 1995 was a factor in the long, slow, lingering death of Canoeist magazine, which was Stuart Fisher's livelihood. Freestyle Publications'' business practices were well known in the trade and amongst contributors. I don't know why anyone thought that Ben Love's appointment was going to change the way freepubs operated.

What contributors do or say is pretty irrelevant. Faced with competition from the internet and Canoe Focus, there may only now be room for 1 or 2 private sector magazines, one inland and one sea, aimed at the mainstream beginner/ SoT market. So that's CKUK and um...er...... Anyway, that's just the way it is.

Chris.

[Steve B]

Speaking from experience Steve? ;-)

<grin>

[Mark R]

the long, slow, lingering death of Canoeist magazine

I just checked - Canoeist is still going, published yearly as a pdf document - http://canoeist.co.uk/wps/apr09/small.pdf

On page 13 Stuart notes, 'It was recently suggested that the internet is now the way to report news for canoeing.' - but of course he then goes on to refute this ludicrous notion.

[Adrian Shanahan]

On page 13 Stuart notes, 'It was recently suggested that the internet is now the way to report news for canoeing.' - but of course he then goes on to refute this ludicrous notion.

[Adrian Cooper]

That will be 'fewer' competitions and representative of canoeing 'press'.

Complicated this English stuff.

[Jace]

I'd refute that statement about being the only media representative at events. If I don't personally attend then we nearly always have a contributor attending the majority of important paddling events.

Jay

[Chris W]

I have fond memeries of contributing to Canoeiest magazine. I was saddened by its demise BUT I wouldn't want to turn the clock back to the pre internet age. Thanks to the internet 000's of paddlers can now exchange news and views. Sure, the quality is uneven BUT there are a lot of talented, bright, well informed boaters out there. Preferable, surely, to the days when one man, the 50 something editor of Canoeist magazine, was THE self appointed independent voice of canoe sport.

Chris.