Loyal readers of the Bulletin were given brely a firm 'handshake' goodbye in oddly just a few words. I believe 'odd' because in its 120 year history this is all the editor had to say to people who've potentially read it their whole lives. Inter-generational information in its truest form.

"The end of an era
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
A note to The Bulletin's loyal readers from Editor-in-Chief, John Lehmann.
Dear Bully Readers,
We’ve been honoured to work under The Bulletin masthead, keeping alive its proud tradition of informing and entertaining Australia with colourful, independent journalism.

Today is a sad day for all those who have loved this great magazine over its long history.

RIP The Bulletin.

The Bulletin team."

Understandably bitter, but grateful would be appreciated...you'd think

Dear StG,

The Wall Street Journal, Jan 25, 2008 confirmed that Australia's oldest weekly news magazine, 'The Bulletin' has shut down after more than 120 years because of the global trend of dwindling sales for premium current-affairs journals.

Its publisher Scott Lorson, Chief Executive of ACP Magazines said 'The Bulletin' published in Sydney since 1880 will cease publication immediately. Apparently weekly sales had gone down to 50,000 (from 100,000 in the 1990s).

Of course it's sad. But this trend is consistant with that experienced by many leading weekly news and current affairs magazines globally and is symptomatic of the impact of the Internet on this particular genre.

It apparently was losing 4 million per year. Which of course is equivalent to Packers' six monthly pizza budget.........and garlic bread.

Imagine having that sort of power over lives, careers and historical icons because of your lack of personal interest.

Foxy: "But this trend is consistant with that experienced by many leading weekly news and current affairs magazines globally and is symptomatic of the impact of the Internet on this particular genre."

Except that, as Mungo McCullum (I think) pointed out, The Monthly and The Griffith Review are going great guns - both increasing circulation.

Dear Vanilla,

Griffith Review - is not a commercial publication. It is a Quarterly publication (not a weekly - as in The Bulletin). It's also intended for a somewhat different audience. Students, Faculty, Staff, et cetera.
It's published by Griffith University and the ABC. Each issue has a theme and it's funded by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its Arts funding and advisory body. It's also a relatively new publication.

As for the The Monthly (again - not a weekly) - that is available online - so of course its popularity is guaranteed.

Problem for the Bulletin - and printed media generally, is people who are annoyed and wish to write something that others can read are now able to do so (almost) without Editorial filtering.

Likewise people of all interests are able to find things written of interest to them to read.

The internet is really being discovered by the masses.

If they do not wish to type so it is read, they can just video record and leave for others to view - se where mobile phones are headed.

Future for media is selecting or filtering likely to be more popular, perhaps better presented, comments for interest groups to locate easily.

.