In the news: The basic job description of a magazine editor continues to change.

The fabric of Hearst magazine editors' jobs is changing. According to a January 26 AdAge.com piece, editors are now working with advertisers to create articles and videos. This marks a fundamental shift for Hearst editors, who haven't had much to do with advertisers in the past. The move appears to be a reflection of a wider industry increase in sponsored content.

What's the potential benefit of these new "content studios," which are popping up at more and more publishing houses? Writes Michael Sebastian in the AdAge article, "By providing brands with additional creative services, as well as placements within their streams of editorial content online -- the latter is usually described as a native ad -- publishers are trying to capture advertising money flowing to digital media." Read his complete write-up here.

Also Notable

Magazine Content Now Eligible for the Pulitzer Prize

Last month, the Pulitzer Prize website announced that many print and digital magazines are now in the running. According to the official press release, "The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, which honor the work of American newspapers and news sites, have expanded eligibility for two prize categories, Investigative Reporting and Feature Writing, to include many online and print magazines." This is a big win for magazine writers, whose hard-hitting longform work was previously ineligible for these coveted prizes. Read the official press release here.

"Netflixing" Magazine Subscriptions

Could a Netflix-like model work for magazine content delivery, or is it, to borrow wording from a recent TheAtlantic.com, an "impossible dream"? In the recent Atlantic piece, Derek Thompson calls into question the idea that Netflixing magazine subscriptions could be a viable model for magazine brands. Magazine app subscribers still constitute a relatively small niche (between 10 and 100 times smaller than the print readership, says Thompson). Therefore, it's difficult to imagine a magazine app Netflix thriving when only a small percentage of subscribers are reading in that format. Read the full analysis here.

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