Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/08/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]<<From: Nathan Wajsman <wajsman@webshuttle.ch> I am a deeply cynical person when it comes to business. After several years of reading magazines like Popular Photography and before that Modern Photography, I am fully convinced that the editorial policies of these magazines are driven by the advertising. This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that the subscription is dirt cheap (I used to pay $9.95 a year for Pop Photo in the early 90s). Clearly, subscriptions do not pay the freight there, ads do. I do not recall ever reading a review of any major brand which was negative. Now, it could be that everything produced by Nikon, Pentax, Minolta and Canon is just wonderful, but I tend to believe that the magazines know which side of the bread is buttered..>>>> Nathan: Your suspicions are correct! Many years ago, Pop Photo or Modern Photo responding to a reader's letter stated that they never publish negative reviews of photo equipment for legal reasons, i.e. they were afraid of being sued by the manufacturers. My personal interpretation is that they were afraid of losing advertising revenues from those companies, because other magazines such as Consumer Reports routinely evaluate products without being taken to court by unhappy manufacturers. So if you never see a review of a certain camera or lens, you can assume that their tests showed it to be a poor quality product, and that they decided not to publish it. Muhammad Chishty