While we all would like to resist change and stay with what has become familiar, inevitably change comes to people and things, including publications and organizations. During the 41 years since Gun Week was born in Ohio in the fall of 1966, we, and previously publishers, have resisted changes. However, over the past four decades, change has been thrust upon us.
The last change in our publication and pricing schedule occurred with the Jan. 1, 1996 issue. That’s when we went from a weekly publication to a three-times a month schedule. Now many forces outside our control force us to make further changes.
Beginning with our next issue, June 1, 2007, the publication schedule and pricing for Gun Week will change. The format will remain essentially the same. Gun Week will become a bi-weekly publication, with issues dated the 1st and 15th of each month. And each issue will continue to be mailed to subscribers approximately 12 days before cover date, depending on weekend dates.
The newsstand price per issue will increase to $3 per copy in the US and $4 in Canada. The cost of half-year, full year and two-year subscriptions will remain the same: $20, $35 and $65 respectively, but the number of copies will be reduced by one-third.
Subscriptions Extended
We will extend the subscriptions of all paid-up subscribers of record as of May 20. Thus, most subscribers will discover a change in the expiration date at the end of the subscription code on their mailing labels. This means that all who had previously subscribed will get the same number of issues they would have gotten; their subscriptions will be extended by one each for each month that might have missed an issue.
The changes on the labels will take place over a few weeks, so you may not observe a change immediately.
As you might have expected, there are several forces impacting Gun Week which contributed to the change.
First and foremost is the increase in postal rates. Some of these become effective on May 14. Still others involving Second Class, under which Gun Week is mailed, Third Class, etc. will not be announced or in place until July. Also effective May 14, we and other publishers will not be allowed to mail foreign subscriptions at Second Class rates. This will be the last issue mailed to foreign subscribers in this way.
In future, all foreign subscriptions must be mailed, in envelopes, at the First Class rate prevailing for each particular country. Because of the Postal Service’s zoned system, this means that foreign subscriptions will be discontinued unless subscribers are willing to pay between $2 and $4 extra per issue for First Class delivery.
Internet Sites
Needless to say, with the growth of the Internet, our foreign subscriber base is a lot less than in earlier years. Curiously, the fall of the Iron Curtain also diminished a decline in foreign subscriptions, many of which were suspected of being Communist government blinds, like the subscriptions that were addressed anonymously to Post Office boxes in Eastern Bloc countries.
Since the Internet is essentially free, except for some publications that require subscriptions or charge fees for use of their websites, many people today are relying on the worldwide web for information. In that connection, we can advise that the Gun Week website (www.gunweek.com) is available and free and offers extensive archival files. Not everything in our print editions is posted to the Gun Week website, but much of it is posted on the cover date of each issue.
In addition, with our switch to bi-weekly publication, we plan to institute a new brief news summary on our website on alternate weeks, say the 7th and 21st of each month.
While we are on the subject of websites, I should list others that are maintained by the Second Amendment Foundation, or related organizations. These are: www.saf.org; www.womenandguns.com; www.keepandbeararms.com, and www.ccrkba.org.
If you’ve been reading general newspapers and some trade or academic journals, you have probably come across stories about discontinuance of some publications, mergers of others and mass layoffs at some of the nation’s largest publishers. This recent trend is partly due to the Internet and partly due to people’s changes in information sources. Even the major television networks have experienced big drop-offs in viewership, primarily because of the expansion of cable and satellite channels.
At the end of April, an Associated Press (AP) business writer filed a story reporting that weekday circulation at US daily newspapers fell 2.1% in the latest six-month reporting period. This was considered further evidence that Americans are turning to the Internet and other media for news.
Comparable figures for Sunday newspapers fell 3.1% for the six months ended in March 2007, according to the Newspaper Association of America, an industry group. The calculations are based on reports that newspapers deliver to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Performance was mixed among the 10 largest newspapers, with several showing declines of 2% to 4% and a few showing gains, most notably The New York Post, which is locked in a fierce competition with The New York Daily News.
According to AP, those two papers had the largest gains among the major dailies, with The Post’s average weekday circulation rising 7.6% over the same period a year earlier, while The Daily News rose 1.4%.
At the same time, other cost factors beyond economies of scale are impacting the publishing field.
The Post, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate News Corp., recently announced that it was doubling its weekday price in May to 50 cents from 25 cents. The Daily News, owned by the real estate developer Mortimer Zuckerman, already charges 50 cents on weekdays.
Gannett Co.’s USA Today remained the largest daily in the country, with circulation of 2,278,022, up 0.2% from the same period a year earlier, ahead of The Wall Street Journal at 2,062,312, up 0.6%.
Elsewhere in the country, The Dallas Morning News, owned by Belo Corp., posted a 14.3% decline to 411,919, reporting for the first time since being censured in 2004 for misstating its circulation figures. The newspaper is the 11th-largest in the US, according to the report.
Newsday, the 12th largest daily based in New York’s Long Island, had a 6.9% decline.
Newspaper circulation has been declining steadily for years amid changing reader habits and the emergence of other media for news, particularly 24-hour cable TV news and the Internet.
No Layoffs
Most of the media stories we’ve encountered recently also report major staff layoffs, particularly at big city newspapers, where advertising income is also down.
No such reduction in staff is planned at Gun Week. Our main publishing office will remain in Buffalo, NY, with our West Coast office at SAF headquarters in Bellevue, WA. The same writers and editors will be at work to keep you informed in the best traditions of the newspaper which has been called “the conscience of the gun lobby.”
We will continue to deliver our special brand of independent, in depth reporting of gun and hunting-related news you are unlikely to find anywhere else. We’ll continue to investigate and authenticate the sources for stories so that you may have more useful detail than is generally available on the Internet or in any of the firearms monthlies. Firearms industry news, guns shows and other features will continue as before.
