[SamAdams76]

This is an older article but still relevant today. I grew up with Reader's Digest during the 1970s and it was a great magazine to read. My parents subscribed to it and I always looked forward to the latest issue in the mail and devoured it. In fact, I think my parents kept the magazine coming just for me.

Eventually, I started collecting back issues from the 1950s and 1960s at flea markets and had boxes and boxes of the magazine in my parent's basement. Unfortuanately when I was in the Marines, some massive spring cleaning was done and they disappeared forever (along with my baseball cards, hockey magazines, Happy Hollister and Hardy Boy books and other childhood memories)>

I also liked the "wraparound" artwork on the magazine's back cover and I've been trying to find the old covers from the 1970s on the Internet with no success as seeing those covers again would bring back some pleasant memories.

Reader's Digest started going to pot in the 1980s and as the article states, it is unreadable today. But I credit Reader's Digest for turning me on to "adult reading" at an early age. By the time I was 12 or 13, I was basically reading adult fare from that point on.

[goldstategop]

I grew up on Reader's Digest as a young man. Its hard to see a great American publication devoured by the Left.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[NonValueAdded]

Jacob Young, who is said by some to be openly hostile to Digest traditions, arrived from People and is now executive editor. Catherine Romano, a number-two editor at both Cosmopolitan and Maxim — magazines about half a step removed from soft porn — signed on as deputy editor. Schrier also created the new position of West Coast editor, whose job is to develop celebrity profiles. And in December, a new editor-in-chief of the magazine appeared on the masthead: Jacqueline Leo, another New York publishing professional with no previous connection to the Digest. In short, the magazine of red-state America is now run almost totally by blue-state Americans.

What could possibly go wrong?

[PeterPrinciple]

During college in the 70's , Readers Digest was the target of my propaganda analysis class.

I still collect books and magazines from the 40', 50's, and 60's. Don't care to read anything newer.

[PatrickF4]

While Communism was falling in Eastern Europe and Russia, Reader's Digest was suddenly faced with a problem of what to publish -how many stories of sick babies and tornado rattled prairie can the readers take? So, for twenty years, it has limped along to its dishonorable grave. Let the dead bury their own dead.

[Condor 63]

In 1982, Susan Sontag sparked a bristling controversy on the left with this confession: "Imagine, if you will, someone who read only Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?"

I can't say I'd like to match the feat, but I'll give Sontag credit for one thing. It is quite an accomplishment to get that stupid.

It can be Susan...it can be.

[martin_fierro]

Decline of Readers Digest PING

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

I concur with the analysis of the article regarding the decline of Reader's Digest in the last decade or so....I have fond memories of when I used to live at home and Mom had a copy of Reader's Digest in the "reading rack" in our downstairs bathroom -- it really passed the time....and made for interesting reading....speaking of interesting reading, someone recently posted this (GOOD!) Reader's Digest ariticle on Free Republic: Cybersleuth Mom (She tracks down terrorists)....you probably already know about this, but I just wanted to bring it to your attention since you had started this thread based on a story about Reader's Digest....FReegards....

[Drawsing]

I first noticed the decline in this magazine when I saw where they were getting some of their jokes and cartoons. "Reprinted from Playboy".