Today marks my 10-year anniversary working for Pentecostal Evangel magazine at Assemblies of God headquarters. My job has changed dramatically in the past decade. Initially I only worked on the monthly missions magazine, taking an overseas trip every couple of months. But I haven’t been out of the country for five years now, as my responsibilities shifted to editing the weekly news section of the domestic edition of the magazine (http://pe.ag.org/).
Much else has changed in the past 10 years of work, of course. In 1999 the Internet didn’t play that big a role in my daily duties; now it’s indispensable. Of course many readers, especially younger ones, have forsaken the printed word for the Web. And the fallout has been tremendous. In just the past year our staff has shrunk from 14 to nine.
Circulation has fallen every year since I’ve been at the magazine, and we’ve lost about 70,000 readers overall in that span. Obviously that trend can’t continue if the magazine is to be around another 10 years.
I’m optimistic that the magazine and newspaper industries will bounce back. Many people like to pick up the daily paper or the weekly periodical, even if the content isn’t free like it is online. I hope that happens; I’d like to keep doing this for awhile.
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