In The New West magazine

Jonathan Weber: Chasing the West’s Big Story

By Jonathan Weber, 2-11-08

Not quite three years ago, in the spare bedroom of my home on the outskirts of Missoula, Courtney Lowery and I launched an online publication devoted to the big story of growth and change in the Mountain West. We always envisioned a multi-product company, but NewWest.Net would be at the core. And we think we’ve done pretty well in building a rich publication with an active, engaged community of readers and contributors. The immediacy of the Internet, and the power and flexibility of so-called Web 2.0 tools, has made it possible to create a new kind of publication.

Yet even in the Internet era, there is a lot to be said for old-fashioned print. Over and over again, people have asked us, when are you going to publish in print? And it’s not that these folks are hopeless Luddites, or resistant to change for the sake of it. Rather, they appreciate the power of ink on paper — a highly flexible, shareable, portable, high-definition technology in its own right.

Although I’ve been involved with print newspapers and magazines for most of my two decades in journalism, it’s been a few years now since I’ve done a magazine, and the past month or so has been an enjoyable reminder of the surprisingly vast differences between print and online publishing.

On one level, the content of this magazine is closely related to the content on NewWest.Net. NewWest.Net is broader in scope — it includes coverage of outdoor recreation, books, food, and other lifestyle topics, while The New West in print is focused tightly on growth and development. But when we write about green building, say, or land-use policy, or cutting edge architecture, we bring the same kind of journalistic approach, no matter what the medium.

Yet in online publishing, the priorities are speed, a breezy style, and linkage to other sources of information. In print, the priorities are good visual presentation, careful wordsmithing, and close attention to fit and finish. A good magazine is a lovingly crafted object that will stand the test of time. A good online publication is more of a moving process, where transience is a virtue.

This is the preview issue of The New West. Not everything is as it will be for the premiere issue in April, but we hope we’ve hit some of the marks in what makes a good magazine. Our cover feature is the kind of long narrative that works much better in print (though with author Matthew Frank’s fine writing, it’s one of those long features that doesn’t read like it’s long). Our departments — “Design Showcase,” “Project Watch” and “Metrics,” and a few more that will debut in April — aspire to the kind of packaging and visual detail that’s hard to accomplish on the Internet.

Our goal with this magazine is to provide critical information, analysis and insight into the economic, social and political issues associated with growth and development. Who is building what, and where and why; who is finding the best solutions to land-use controversies, or environmental problems, or conflicts between the old and the new; who is pioneering the design innovations that will make the New West all that it can be.

We look forward to your thoughts on what we’ve done well, and where we need to improve. Email me at jonathan@newwest.net, or give us a call — and always visit us oneline at www.NewWest.net.

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