National Geographic ADVENTURE Magazine Publishes Last Issue
I’m pretty sure I flipped through the pages of the National Geographic Magazine since before I could read. The beautiful photos, even without the inspiring and informative stories, transported me to foreign continents, deep jungles, and arid deserts. When National Geographic began publishing ADVENTURE in 1999, I read that too. My family never got a subscription for National Geographic ADVENTURE, but since then I have bought copies whenever I’ve visited grocery stores, pharmacies and news stands. Through its pages I have traveled around the world for the past 10 years.
Unfortunately, the era of National Geographic ADVENTURE has ended. After 10 years, the December/January issue currently on newsstands will be the last issue the National Geographic Society publishes. Steve Casimiro, an editor for ADVENTURE, reported that National geographic issued a press release saying:
National Geographic is transitioning its Adventure brand from traditional print to a multi-platform model that will include newsstand editions, books, e-magazines, mobile applications and a robust Web site. National Geographic will also continue to honor the world’s great explorers and adventurers with the National Geographic Adventure Awards. “We’re tremendously proud of what John Rasmus and his team have accomplished over the last 10 years,” NG Publishing President John Q. Griffin said in making the announcement. “They have consistently delivered award-winning editorial to an enthusiastic audience of readers and advertisers. But given the current advertising environment and the opportunities we see in emerging digital platforms, we think the time is right to transition the Adventure brand.” Griffin shared the news at a staff meeting in New York today. A total of 17 staffers in New York and Washington are affected.
I’m sad to see the magazine go, but I’m glad that they will continue creating content in other media. I’m sure ADVENTURE’s new form will be as inspiring as the print magazine. In 1911, sociologist Georg Simmel wrote that
what we call an adventure stands in contrast to that in interlocking of life-links, to that feeling that those countercurrents, turnings, and knots still, after all, spin forth a continuous thread. An adventure is certainly a part of our existence, directly contiguous with other parts which precede and follow it; at the same time, however, in its deeper meaning, it occurs outside the usual continuity of this life.
According to Simmel, an adventure by its very nature has a beginning, a middle, and an end; it must have a departure, a story, and a return. It’s only fitting that ADVENTURE would come to an end; its 10 years of reporting has been an adventure in itself.
