The capitalist tool of magazines

Larry Dobrow of Advertising Age writes Thursday about what makes Forbes unique among business magazines.

Dobrow wrote, “Anyway, I now feel knowledgeable enough to anoint Forbes as the most discarded business magazine in the continental U.S. I’ve seen soiled copies of it wedged into seat-back pouches, strewn across hotel lobbies, nesting in an LAX toilet stall. People seem unable to dispose of their Forbes in either a considerate or environmentally sound manner. I’m with Singapore here: Let’s cane the dickens out of the litterers.

“Beyond the aforementioned travelers-are-pigs argument, there are two ways to explain the glut of abandoned issues. First, that Forbes stimulates such deep thought in its readers that they lose the ability to keep track of their possessions; or second, that readers are so put off by the mag’s relentless yay-for-capitalism thrust that they must divorce themselves from it suddenly and with great malice.

“It’s probably a combination of explanations one and two. Forbes may be the most thoughtful of the business mags, the one that cares least about the personalities of the execs and companies it covers and most about their place in the larger scheme of things. At the same time, Forbes is the most strenuously, joylessly on-point publication I’ve ever read, so smothering in its pro-biz mission as to make me yearn for a fluffy, speculative report on Britney’s finances.”

Read more here.