If you're a Clamor Magazine subscriber, you probably got a letter a few weeks ago announcing that, after seven years, the independent magazine has closed up shop. Haven't read Clamor? Don't worry, the story of this little magazine is actually a much larger story, one that has implication for the rest of the independent media world.
"If we'd been realistic, we would have closed a couple years ago," says Jen Angel, Clamor's co-founder and co-editor, who, along with Jason Kucsma, had been at the helm of the magazine since the beginning.
A journal of progressive youth culture, whose glossy cover belied the gritty content contained within, Clamor had been going strong for 38 issues. Last month, when its editors and publishers found themselves at a crossroads -- the winter issue was laid out and ready, but the magazine had several thousand dollars less than what was needed to go to print -- Angel and Kucsma decided it was finally time to put an end to the project.
Since 1999, Clamor served as a self-termed "DIY guide to everyday revolution." It published work by and for a range of writers and thinkers. It gave readers stories they didn't know they were missing -- and it presented them in an accessible, easy-to-read format. The magazine didn't have a very large readership; it amassed 8,000 email subscribers and sold around 10,000 paper issues each month. But Clamor stood at the unique intersection of punk rock and politics and it rejected the notion that experts, or the old white guys of our parents' generation of progressive magazines, knew any better than we did about what was going on.
The New Standard reported on Clamor's financial troubles just a few months back, but even then the publishers remained optimistic about the magazine's future, and for good reason. Their fall edition included a three-part expose of American Apparel's more-than-questionable progressive cred. The issue was widely viewed as their best, and even garnered an ultimatum from American Apparel, a corporate giant that seemed to be quaking in their trendy shoes in light of Clamor's 10-page special section. The articles generated buzz in the blog community, and it seemed like Clamor had finally arrived.
"Clamor's future has always been kind of touch and go," says Kucsma. "But we had no idea that we would not be publishing at the end of the year."
Last January, they brought on two associate publishers: Nomy Lamm, an activist, organizer, writer and performer who took on working with the newly-formed advisory board, and Mandy Van Deven, who had been running the show over at Altar, to take on some of the business and outreach burden. Kucsma and Angel were in the process of transitioning the magazine over to Lamm and Van Deven's leadership, but the financial burden that the magazine had become, coupled with the already-daunting task of running something on that scale, made it impossible to pass off.
Angel and Kucsma didn't want the magazine to go online because they felt there were already tons of progressive resources online. It was Clamor's in-hand, print appeal that they wanted to save. The editors also worried that transitioning to the web would feel like a drastic down-grade and that just wasn't Clamor's style. But the effort to continue paying the printing costs would have meant committing more time to making money than to making a magazine.
As with many grassroots projects -- especially those with deadlines, publishing schedules, and printing bills -- there was also some level of burnout. Angel and Kucsma, who were married for a portion of the time Clamor was publishing, had balanced the full time job of the magazine with other full time jobs, organizing work with the Allied Media Conference, and managing InfoSHOP Direct. They were putting in 15-hour days, says Kucsma, and not all of those hours were paid.
From the beginning, it was the love of the ideas behind Clamor that kept it going. The idea to start the magazine came about during a conversation at the Underground Media Symposium in Kansas City, Mo. in the spring of 1999. Angel was writing the ‘zine Fucktooth, and Kucsma was working on Praxis, and writing his graduate thesis on the role ‘zines can play in radicalizing young people from communities of privilege. They wanted to wed ‘zines with big, national-scale magazine culture, preserving the better parts of both. The product become Clamor, "a loud and continuous uproar of many human voices."
The magazine, they decided, would tap into a wide community of readers, writers and editors, they hoped, reaching across race, class, gender, sexual orientation and interest areas to find shared struggles. And it wouldn't be the standard-issue recap of Howard Zinn or Barbara Ehrenreich opinions typical of The Progressive or Z Magazine.
"Much of their editorial decisions are based on who they know their readers are," says Kucsma of the old-guard progressive magazines. "[Clamor] was kind of a bridge between generations."
They were also clear about not wanting to preach to the choir. Kucsma describes wanting to take the ideas behind activism and "get them out of the subcultural ghetto." When they focused on mainstream distribution, it was with the hope of reaching folks in towns where there are few options other than large chain stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble.
"If we can't deliver positive, accessible media to people in these places, there isn't going to be any," says Joshua Breitbart, who served as a consulting editor at the magazine for several years, and later as part of the advisory board.
Accessibility remained central to the goal. "If my mother couldn't understand it, that's not what I wanted to publish," says Angel. This "mom rule" prevailed throughout Clamor's seven years, setting it apart from many lefty mags. The rule reveals the editors' inclusive approach. "For social change to happen, we need a critical mass," says Angel. "And we're not going to get that by alienating them."
The same ethos held for writers, who were welcomed and nurtured by Angel, Kucsma, and the band of section editors that expanded over the course of magazine's lifespan. They published more than 1,000 different people's work over those seven years, and for each article they published, there were four more that they just didn't have space for.
But that breadth raised constant questions about who exactly their audience was. There was a desire to bring in the uninitiated, while maintaining a reader base of activists hungry for new information. There was the tension between the WTO generation, and the kids whose political awareness came about in post 9/11 America. These tensions were both a challenge and a strength for Clamor.
"They struggled with those questions for seven years, and then we stopped publishing. But I don't know if they had kept going for 20 years they would have answered them," says Breitbart. "Those media outlets not struggling with them are probably not thinking hard enough."
Which is where we get to the heart of the issue. Breitbart points to the need to do too much, or the desire to cover all the bases, as one of the challenges that faced Clamor. In a media market where independent voices are lucky to squeak through for a short, limited point of time, those who do have a platform feel an overwhelming need to be everything to everyone. Breibart believes that independent media sources need to put more emphasis on giving back to other projects, collaborating, and supporting one another. That support not only saves the other publications, but your own, he says.
Clamor's circumstances were not unique. The financial reality for independent print magazines has been less than uplifting in recent years. LiP is closing, Bitch has had to pay for their publishing on credit, and rumors abound about the fate of even the bigger independent magazines. And according to the SF Weekly, trouble at the Independent Press Association has cut many publications off from their already-limited income, Clamor included.
For Clamor's editors and publishers, the closure raises important questions, questions they hope will be part of the impact of the magazine.
"We need to stop following the [traditional corporate] business model and start coming up with alternative models for sustainable independent media," says Van Deven. "There needs to be consciousness raising about why independent media needs community support -- particularly financial support -- and participation in order to survive."
"If Clamor's closing can make us ask those questions, we owe them a debt," adds Breitbart.
As Angel puts it: "I don't think magazines have to be around forever to have an impact."
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