Stereophile looses Jonathan Scull


General Asylum
FYI, Stereophile looses Jonathan Scull
66.161.175.28

Posted by Gordon Rankin (M) on March 29, 2002 at 12:39:56
FYI,
Heard about this yesterday and conformation today from J10 that Primedia (Stereophile's parent company) wanted to slim down it's staff in all magazines let J10 go yesterday.
I have know Jonathan for sometime now and his certain wit will leave Stereophile a little colder than it was before.
Thanks J10 for the bandwith!
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
albundy15000696a
Post removed 
I will miss Scull and his articles, even if I couldn't afford the gear he landed in his pad every month. Since I live in the cultural abyss, the only time I get to hear new gear is CES, other shows, and good mags through the ears of others. Unfortunately, Stereophile is heading the direction of StereoPILE, with the loss of another good set of ears. Dick Olsher, Corey Greenberg (yes, I liked Corey and his "don't take this too serious attitude"), Robert Harley, to name a few of the losses. J-10 needs to call DO and continue to Enjoy the Music.com Jallen
No loss,these mags stoped represeting the aveage listner many years ago.They are in bed with the MFGS and deserve the fate they get.
Bound For Sound,Positive Feedback Audiophie Voice,UHF.They still do a good job and are better reads.They also cover stuff the average Joe can actually afford.Not the stuff that The EX Enron Executive's can afford.
Who needs Stereophile anyway when we all have AudiogoN for advice and hands on reviews from a large community of Audiophiles!!


This is the same as the news this week that Maryland Public Television (MPT) is not going to renew Louis Rukeyser's contract. They are going to reshape Wall Street Week for a younger audience with the help of Fortune Maganzine. What a joke. Who will watch the show, when the only thing that resembles the old show is the name. I think MPT really thinks no one will notice and Rukeysers large viewing audience will still tune in. Not me and I doubt anyone else.

Rukeyser has already received a dozen offers from other networks including cable.

Remember the show "Sneak Previews"? It was a movie review program staring Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. More than a decade ago when PBS replaced them, they started their own show which is still on, and the PBS show without them only lasted a year.

Scull? You mean Mr. Italics? Mr. Large Butt? Ribbon Chair? The sad part is that through attrition, he had actually become one of the more interesting writers they had left, which I mean as a backhanded compliment. You might remember how lots of folks voiced their dismay when he was promoted to Senior Editor. If you ask me, it was Scull who needed an editor! Yet compared to a stodgy sountrack-maven like Greenhill, or a gee-whiz superlatives-monger like Reina, Scull, even with all his excesses, could at least sometimes bring a smile to my face. And I for one was puzzled to say the least when he caught so many accusations for his honestly negative review of the Richard Gray power conditioner, in light of the longstanding charge that the mag and its advertisers were in bed together to produce nothing but raves. He deserves credit for communicating his obvious love of music and audio, for trying to entertain, for employing diverse styles of music in his auditioning, and for never taking himself seriously - despite his predilections for big bucks and purple prose. (Dare I suppose he could still contribute reviews, even if he is not a member of the editorial staff? His predecessor, Wes Phillips, still writes for Stereophile occasionally.) But as one who never quite cottoned to J-10's "tweakage-'n'-leakage" school of reveiwing, I must say that promoting him then or loosing him now is the least of Sterelphile's problems. Recommended Components is a "Class A" bad joke gone stale. The best writing is in the columns and the occasional feature, not the Incredible Shrinking Review Section. Their most technically informative contributors, Dickson and Colloms, are MIA. The long-promised upgrade of the photographic content vanished almost before anyone could see it. Intriguing new products languish unreviewed. The whole thing feels like JA & Co. are just going through the motions, and grudgingly at that. If it wasn't for the borderline amaturishness and mayfly-like endurance often displayed by most of their print and online competition, not to mention the fact that no one else is doing tests since the demise of the late (and unlamented by me) Audio, Stereophile would be in real trouble. If TAS takes advantage of the situation the way they should, it will be (although if the copy-cat tendencies begun in the last issue are any indication, I wouldn't get my hopes up). But at a buck an issue, what can we expect? I think most readers would gladly pay double, if the advertising won't cut it, to get back the old gutbusting Stereophile 12 times a year.