READER'S DIGEST Will File for Bankruptcy

The Christian Science Monitor reports (Reader’s Digest can’t escape media’s recession by Laurent Belsie) that the Digest is going through tough times.

Here's the details from a late afternoon NY Times article by Stephanie Clifford:

The Reader’s Digest Association announced on Monday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for its United States businesses within 30 days.

It's funny. I was just talking with Mark Anderson this morning about the Digest and how it was probably time for another cartoon meeting. Now, I don't know. The mag is going to be there for a time, while the current restructuring gets set.

Circulation is in the millions, but the current owners are looking to get rid of 75% of debts according to Forbes. In exchange, the magazine's debtors will swap their monies due for ownership. If penny pinchers instead of editors run the shop, then content will be slashed.

The Digest is one of the top paying cartoons markets in the world. It will be hard to see it go, but maybe it's the last of the big general interest magazines to fall. Once there was Colliers, Look, Life, the old Saturday Evening Post; these are all gone.

The press on this is that things will continue as it was. I hope so. Let the editors edit. And let the cartoon content of the Digest be unique and original.

My thanks to Rod McKie for the news. Thanks, Rod.