If you’re reading these words in the dead-tree version of this magazine, you may have already realized it’s a bit thinner than previous issues. That’s because we’ve been forced to reduce the number of pages each month, from 32 to 24, thanks to high paper prices. We’re not the first magazine to face this reality and we won’t be the last.
Put simply, the economic realities of publishing simply aren’t what they used to be. Back in the 1990s, when I first got into aviation writing and editing, it was much different. Yes, the Internet and its free content is at least partially to blame, but profit-taking among producers and suppliers of basic commodities like eggs, petroleum, paper and even postage has downstream effects on all of us. (As an aside, I can’t seem to give away a stand of pine timber on property I own in Georgia. Go figure.) It seems the economic trauma resulting from the Covid pandemic will continue in unforeseen ways.
