"Some of the biggest changes that have happened are behind the scenes, in the way we produce the magazine. E.g., much of our production has been brought in-house via desktop publishing"
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A line like this is the quiet victory lap of institutional survival: change that keeps the cover looking familiar while the machinery underneath gets rebuilt. Schmidt isn’t selling an artistic revolution; he’s normalizing a workflow revolution. The phrase “behind the scenes” signals a deliberate humility, but it also smuggles in a claim to competence: the real modernization isn’t flashy redesign or editorial shock therapy, it’s control over production.
The specific intent is managerial reassurance. Desktop publishing, framed as “brought in-house,” is about sovereignty. In magazine land, outsourcing production means dependency on vendors, slower turnaround, higher costs, and less flexibility when an issue is running late or an editor wants to reflow a story at the eleventh hour. By emphasizing process rather than aesthetics, Schmidt implies that the publication’s identity can remain stable even as the economics and technology shift under it.
The subtext is labor and leverage. “In-house” hints at a reallocation of skills: editors and designers (or newly hybrid staff) absorbing tasks once handled by specialized production houses. It’s a subtle nod to the broader late-20th-century media pattern where digital tools promised democratization but often delivered consolidation: fewer external craftspeople, more responsibility concentrated inside a shrinking organization.
Contextually, this is the magazine industry’s analog-to-digital hinge moment. Desktop publishing wasn’t just a new tool; it was a new timetable, a new cost structure, a new chain of accountability. Schmidt’s calm tone is the point: the future arrives disguised as workflow.
The specific intent is managerial reassurance. Desktop publishing, framed as “brought in-house,” is about sovereignty. In magazine land, outsourcing production means dependency on vendors, slower turnaround, higher costs, and less flexibility when an issue is running late or an editor wants to reflow a story at the eleventh hour. By emphasizing process rather than aesthetics, Schmidt implies that the publication’s identity can remain stable even as the economics and technology shift under it.
The subtext is labor and leverage. “In-house” hints at a reallocation of skills: editors and designers (or newly hybrid staff) absorbing tasks once handled by specialized production houses. It’s a subtle nod to the broader late-20th-century media pattern where digital tools promised democratization but often delivered consolidation: fewer external craftspeople, more responsibility concentrated inside a shrinking organization.
Contextually, this is the magazine industry’s analog-to-digital hinge moment. Desktop publishing wasn’t just a new tool; it was a new timetable, a new cost structure, a new chain of accountability. Schmidt’s calm tone is the point: the future arrives disguised as workflow.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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