Jet, the nation’s third-largest magazine aimed at an African-American audience, is going from an every-third-week print edition to digital only.
The magazine, launched 63 years ago by John Johnson, was billed originally as “The Weekly Negro News Magazine.”
Through the 1950s and ’60s, it pioneered coverage of the early civil rights struggle in a digest-size magazine that sold for only 15 cents.
One of its most galvanizing moments was its decision to run photos of the mutilated body of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American boy infamously murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a white woman.
The magazine shifted from weekly to every-third-week publication in February 2013 in the face of rising postage and printing costs. Jet has a circulation of 720,000, flat from a year prior.
“Almost 63 years ago, my father, John Johnson, named the publication Jet because, as he said in the first issue, ‘In the world today, everything is moving faster. There is more news and far less time to read it,’ ” said Linda Johnson Rice, chairwoman of Johnson Publishing Co. “He could not have spoken more relevant words today. We are not saying goodbye to Jet, we are embracing the future as my father did in 1951 and taking it to the next level.”
Desirée Rogers, CEO since 2010, said the new weekly digital magazine app will leverage a variety of storytelling tactics, including video interviews, enhanced digital maps, 3D charts and photography from the JPC archives.
The app will be available on all tablet devices and mobile platforms with a $20 annual subscription price. Those who don’t want to transition to digital will be given its sister title, Ebony.