I’m so glad that I can come to you this time with a piece of optimistic news! I was reading that despite the onslaught of the Internet, Google, online publications, blogs, etc., printed magazine circulation in this country has gone up 11% over the course of the last decade! Yes, it’s true and it has been confirmed, Ladies and Gentlemen, magazines not only survived the “electronic age” but managed to do better. And we are talking about an old industry, not a new one, like blogs that can show huge percentage points upwards in very short periods of time. For a well established field to expand 11% in ten years is quite an accomplishment.

When we talk and hear about the crisis in the printed press we assume that everything printed is about to come down. The truth is that newspapers have been seriously hit and their mid-term (forget about long term) survival is in serious doubt. The reasons are many and one should not focus only on the advent of the Internet media that have demonstrated the tendency to render newspapers obsolete. When television came about, although the pressure was felt by it, cinema didn’t disappear. What happened with newspapers? We can see each time we pick one up, even among the most robust ones, that they failed to redefine themselves and as a result were redefined by their “opponents” – the new, Internet media – as anachronistic, backward, devoid of spontaneity etc. Their struggle to survive – and I worked for many years in newspapers – has to do mostly with the fact that they have failed so far to find a role and then play it as best they can. Yes, there is a lot of imagination on the table, every kind of improvisation and cautious steps that come with the speed of an 85 year old rheumatic, which is indicative of their clumsiness to respond to new trends. But the point has been missing all along.

The same isn’t true for the magazine industry. In fact, more than a few went far ahead and much earlier than the Internet era itself. Wired comes to mind and Vanity Fair to cite a more classic beauty. Perhaps the fact that they don’t come out every day, in contrast to most newspapers, contributed to their ability to focus in a more timely fashion on the new challenges and start responding to them in no time. Instead of fighting for survival as most newspapers have been doing, magazines somehow managed to go beyond the problem and open the window to new opportunities and challenges which placed them in a position of leadership. It was a giant leap forward that proved once more the survival of the fittest theory by actually taking it a step further in showing that there is always future for those who can be creative and not simply trying to adjust.

Of course, the night is still young, the struggle is still in the beginning and who knows, maybe in ten years from now more accomplishments or setbacks can happen. For the moment though, magazines have carried the day and can deservedly celebrate (albeit not relax). NEO isn’t of course a big player in the American publishing scene, but it is very close to become the “play maker” in the American Greek community. Following in the trend of the past five years, last January we published the most successful issue ever. This despite the bad economy and the collapse of Greece which sent ripples that reached our community here as well. People have come to embrace this publication and, yes, we are optimistic that we’ll keep moving upwards, towards new heights, not evaporation of course!

Our main focus now is to partner with the right individuals or entities that will enable NEO to accomplish its mission in becoming the community’s mouthpiece – in matters that matter, not just in gossip and second rate Church affairs that make atheists look blessed in comparison! And we aim to set a real and realistic American Greek agenda in order for the community and its various components to move in a semblance of common direction. We were never a monolithic group as some either mentally blind, stupid or simply crooked people want us to believe.

Perhaps it’s a very ambitious, audacious you could say, goal but we are Greeks and can’t expect less from ourselves!