CRUX Magazine - issue #6 · 22 April 2008
Issue #6 of the Australian CRUX Magazine is out. It was a massive team effort with over 70 people contributing articles, photos and helping out with editing. I think it has resulted in something that the Oz climbing community can be very proud of.
The magazine is once again a bumper 80 pages packed with the kind of informative, entertaining and irreverent content we’ve come to expect from CRUX. Subtitled the “Girlpower” special, the issue has numerous articles by women and about women’s climbing. There were a few comments on Chockstone.org (Australia’s most popular climbing forum) that the women’s content didn’t go far enough. I think it was a commendable effort by the CRUX editor and the contributors to get so much good content on the subject together in the one issue. Bearing in mind that an editor is always going to look for some balance even if deciding to publish a “special” feature edition (when CRUX published a Blue Mountains and Road Trip special editions, not every article in the magazine was devoted to those subjects, so the women’s edition was consistent with this approach).
As Lee Cujes commented “It would seem to me that women contributed on or were the focus of the majority of the main articles in the mag. I can’t see a published Aussie example of where this has been done better previously.” I know that the CRUX editor has made a consistently concerted effort to source material on women’s climbing ever since the magazine’s inception (or err, conception). Even so, I think it’s great that the CRUX editor decided to make an extra special effort to source so much material on women’s climbing. I think the few comments that the women’s material didn’t go far enough are indicative of how the subject has been so badly covered by Australian magazines in the past. Perhaps CRUX’s treatment of the subject wasn’t perfect, maybe it could have gone further (though that may have been difficult without reducing the appeal of the magazine to the majority of readers), but I think it’s good that at least CRUX has made a serious effort on the subject. It’s not as if CRUX has 30 years of neglecting the issue to make up for!
This issue marks the two years of CRUX publication; quite a milestone! CRUX has kept to the larger A4 format after much feedback on the Photo Annual. As a photographer I’m happy to see that as it’s so much better for the photography. There were other arguments both ways about the size (the first four issues were A5) but in the end it was clear that the larger format is something that advertisers were particularly keen for. Keeping advertisers happy is important for the viability of the magazine. CRUX is not using the news agency distribution model, it is only sold through outdoor equipment shops and climbing gyms or mail-order online. It can be a difficult decision for a magazine to decide which distribution methods to use. If CRUX used news agency distribution it could print many thousands more magazines, and if it wanted it could then use these print run figures to boast to potential advertisers, however unless they disclosed the actual number sold then that would likely be misleading when many of the magazines may not be sold – and just end up getting pulped! I remember a few years back Chris Baxter, the then owner of Rock Magazine, telling me that they didn’t sell as much as three quarters of the magazines that they tried to distribute via news agencies. Well I think it’s environmentally irresponsible. And if I was a potential advertiser I’d want to be sure I know aht sort of figures I was being quoted (”readership” is usually just pie in the sky guess work).
Yes, I like CRUX Magazine. Over the years I’ve also given Rock lot of support (I’ve contributed far more photographs to the magazine than any other contributor; my photographs have featured on at least 14 covers). I’d like to see both magazines thrive and prosper. I think having two magazines is good for the Australian climbing community; there’s a lot going on, no magazine can cover it all, and two mags provide some balance. I particularly like CRUX because the editor seems very open to ideas and the editor, contributors and designers have done a far better job of capturing the vibe of the Australian climbing scene. That’s why I’m supporting the magazine and am trying to do my little bit by using some of my business’s infrastructure to help out with distributing the magazine. That’s why you can purchase mail-order copies and subscriptions from here.
Check it out and let the editor (Neil Monteith) know what you think. Next issue is due out in September.
— Simon Carter
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