The Death of Rolling Stone, Sean Elder, Salon.com
With the current changing of editors at Rolling Stone, readers are finally forced to confront questions about the magazine’s “reason to be,” Sean Elder writes in Salon.com. The rock ‘n’ roll journal, born in 1967, was once a rough-but-thought-provoking forum for pop culture, politics, and just about anything else cutting-edge. But Rolling Stone in recent years has lost its distinct attitude and identity, becoming–in Elder’s words–an “undistinguished hybrid — part ’70s-style journalism (investigative reporting, distinct voices and rambling interviews), and part any other entertainment magazine you can name.” Now, after managing editor Robert Love has been dismissed and British mens’ mag FHM editor Ed Needham prepares to take over, can Rolling Stone regain its former vitality? Elder says it’s too late, and suggests it might be time to respectfully “shut the mother down.” Needham insists that his coming to leadership is “certainly not the end of Rolling Stone as you know it.” Elder agrees: “That happened some time ago.”
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