James Babb’s Journey

James Babb is the long-time fishing columnist and now editor of Gray’s Sporting Journal. He’s also a successful author with a finely tuned sense of humor. In this podcast he offers insight on the trajectory of sporting and angling literature, as well as the effects of Ad Men on publishing.

Podcast Excerpt: “For better or worse, most magazines today are advertisers’ magazines. Gray’s has a lot of advertising today, more than I would like to see, but, you know, we have to pay the bills. But it’s a readers magazine — it was started as a reader’s magazine, as an allergic reaction, I think, to this kind of commercialization and dumbing down of the literature. I mean, advertisers aren’t interested in an intelligent readership, they’re interested in a docile readership, and Gray’s has always, from its inception, gone for that intelligent readership.”