National Geographic Magazine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| National Geographic | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Editor | Chris Johns |
| Categories | Geography, Science, History, Nature |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First issue | October 1888[1] |
| Company | National Geographic Society |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Website | www.ngm.com |
| ISSN | 0027-9358 |
The National Geographic Magazine is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded. It is immediately identifiable by the characteristic yellow border running around the edge of its cover.
There are 12 monthly issues of National Geographic per year, plus additional map supplements. On rare occasions, special editions are also issued. It contains articles about geography, popular science, history, culture, current events, and photography. The current Editor-in-Chief of National Geographic Magazine is Chris Johns.
Society Executive Vice President and President of the Magazine Group John Q. Griffin, who also is Chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America, has overall responsibility for the English language magazines at National Geographic. He reports to Tim Kelly, President, National Geographic Global Media. Terry B. Adamson, Executive Vice President of the Society and the Society's chief legal officer and heads governmental relations, has overall responsibility for the Society's international publications, including National Geographic Magazine. He reports to Society president John M. Fahey, Jr.
With a worldwide circulation in thirty-two language editions of nearly nine million, more than fifty million people read the magazine every month. In May 2007, National Geographic magazine won the American Society of Magazine Editors' General Excellence Award in the over two million circulation category and the best photography award for three issues of the magazine in 2006.
Contents |
[edit] Articles
During the Cold War, the magazine committed itself to presenting a balanced view of the physical and human geography of nations beyond the Iron Curtain. The magazine printed articles on Berlin, de-occupied Austria, the Soviet Union, and Communist China that deliberately downplayed politics to focus on culture. In its coverage of the Space Race, National Geographic focused on the scientific achievement while largely avoiding reference to the race's connection to nuclear arms buildup.
In later years articles became outspoken on issues such as environment, deforestation, chemical pollution, global warming, and endangered species. Series of articles were included focusing on the history and varied uses of specific products such as a single metal, gem, food crop, or agricultural product, or an archaeological discovery. Occasionally an entire month's issue would be devoted to a single country, past civilization, a natural resource whose future is endangered, or other theme. In recent decades, the National Geographic Society has unveiled other magazines with different focuses.
[edit] Photography
In addition to being well-known for articles about scenery, history, and the most distant corners of the world, the magazine has been recognized for its book-like quality and its standard of photography. This standard makes it the home to some of the highest-quality photojournalism in the world. The magazine began to feature color photography in the early 20th century, when this technology was still rare. During the 1930s, Luis Marden (1913-2003), a writer and photographer for National Geographic, convinced the magazine to allow its photographers to use small 35 mm cameras loaded with Kodachrome film over bulkier cameras with tripods and glass plates. In 1959, the magazine started publishing small photographs on its covers, later becoming larger photographs. National Geographic photography has quickly shifted to digital photography for both its magazine on paper and its website. In subsequent years, the magazine cover, while keeping its yellow border, shed its oak leaf trim and bare table of contents, for a large photograph taken from one of the month's articles inside. National Geographic are often kept by subscribers for years and re-sold at thrift stores as collectible back-issues. In 2006, National Geographic began an international photography competition with over eighteen countries participating
See also: Red Shirt School of Photography
[edit] Map supplements
Supplementing the articles, the magazine sometimes provides maps of the regions visited. The Society's map archives have been used by the United States government in instances where its own cartographic resources were limited.[citation needed] President Franklin Roosevelt's White House map room was filled with National Geographic maps. A National Geographic map of Europe is featured in the displays of the Winston Churchill museum in London showing Churchill's markings at the Yalta Conference where the Allied and Russian leaders divided post-war Europe. In 2001, National Geographic released an eight-CD-ROM set containing all its maps from 1888 to December 2000.
[edit] Paul Salopek
A two-time Pulitzer prize winning writer on assignment for National Geographic Magazine for a feature article on the Sahel region, Paul Salopek, and two Chadian assistants were arrested and charged in August 2006 with espionage, entering Sudan without a visa, and other crimes by the Government of Sudan. After National Geographic and the Chicago Tribune, for whom Salopek also wrote, mounted a legal defense and led an international appeal to Sudan from such world figures as Jimmy Carter, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bono, and many prominent journalists and press organizations, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was invited to Sudan by President Omar al-Bashir. In a meeting the night of Richardson's arrival, al-Bashir said he would release Salopek on humanitarian grounds. National Geographic Editor-in-Chief Chris Johns flew with Richardson and others to El Fashir in Northern Darfur where Salopek was jailed. Salopek was released and flew back home with his wife to New Mexico. His two assistants from Chad were also released and returned to their country.
[edit] Sharbat Gula
The famous cover photo of the June 1985 issue was of an Afghan refugee, a young 13-year old girl with haunting green eyes. The photograph was taken in a small tented schoolroom by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry in a Peshawar, Pakistan refugee camp. After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan a search was conducted for the (presumably grown) girl. Remarkably, a National Geographic television film crew found her, and she was identified in 2002 as Sharbat Gula, a Pashtun woman married and living with her family, and quite unaware of her fame as a photographic subject. Steve McCurry again photographed Sharbat Gula for the second time in her life. Her story was told in the April 2002 issue of National Geographic and in a National Geographic television documentary. She stated then that the two famous photos of her, the one from 1985 and the follow-up in 2002, were the only times she had ever been photographed. A fund named after Gula was created and initially funded by the Society and contributed to by thousands of readers which resulted in a partnership between National Geographic and the Asia Foundation in the creation of a girls' school in Afghanistan that taught hundreds of teenage girls with both a vocational and basic education, in addition to a hot meal and health care. The funds also contributed to the construction of a public school for girls in Kabul [1].
[edit] Greenberg v. National Geographic
An electronic edition "The Complete National Geographic on CD-ROM and DVD," consisting of over 108 years of an exact image-based reproduction of each and every page of each monthly paper issue of National Geographic magazine, has been tied up in copyright litigation for over ten years by a handful of prior photographers and contributors since shortly after the digital archive was issued in late 1997. National Geographic withdrew this archive from the market in 2004 until the litigation was resolved. Two federal appellate courts have ruled in the various cases. One case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled against National Geographic in 2001 (Greenberg v. National Geographic) prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in a similar case later that same year involving the same statute of the U.S. Copyright law (Tasini v. The New York Times et al). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said that "Greenberg" was inconsistent with the Supreme Court ruling in "Tasini," and ruled in favor of National Geographic in cases involving the same Complete National Geographic product. These New York cases were decided after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Tasini case. In a decision announced June 13, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed its prior decision in Greenberg I and ruled that the "Complete National Geographic" was an appropriate reproduction under the Copyright Act since it maintained the context of its prior collective works. The appeals court said that the Second Circuit was correct in holding that Greenberg I was inconsistent with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Tasini case. On August 30, 2007, the Eleventh Circuit issued an order vacating the panel decision in Greenberg 2 and said the Court would hear the appeal en banc, or by all the judges on the Court, which was heard February 26, 2008. Since National Geographic's victory in the Second Circuit, several publications, the New Yorker, Playboy "Atlantic Monthly," and "Rolling Stone," have either produced or announced plans to produce complete reproductions of their prior paper magazines on DVD or a restricted website for subscribers.
[edit] Language editions
In 1995, National Geographic began publishing in Japanese, its first local language edition. The magazine is now published in thirty-two (32) different language editions around the world, including: English on a worldwide basis, Albanian, Bulgarian, traditional and simplified character Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew and an Orthodox Hebrew edition, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, two Portuguese language editions, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, two Spanish language editions, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish.
In April 2005, an Indonesian edition launched, published by Gramedia Majalah - Jakarta. A Bulgarian edition of the magazine published by a Sanoma Publishing joint venture launched in November, 2005 and a Slovenian edition published by Rokus launched in May, 2006. In association with Trends Publications in Beijing and IDG Asia, National Geographic has been authorized for "copyright cooperation" in China to publish the yellow border magazine, which recently launched with the July 2007 issue of the magazine with an event in Beijing on July 10, 2007 and another event on December 6, 2007 in Beijing also celebrating the 29th anniversary of normalization of U.S. - China relations featuring former President Jimmy Carter. A Serbian edition of National Geographic was launched with the November 2006 issue in partnership with a joint venture of Sanoma and Gruner + Jahr. A Hebrew edition has recently launched in Israel.
In contrast to the United States, where membership in the National Geographic Society was until recently the only way to receive the magazine, the worldwide editions are sold on newsstands in addition to regular subscriptions. In several countries, such as Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and Turkey, National Geographic paved the way for a subscription model in addition to traditional newsstand sales.
[edit] Awards
On May 1, 2008, National Geographic won 3 National Magazine Awards: an award solely for its written content — in the reporting category for an article by Peter Hessler on the Chinese economy; an award in the photojournalism category for work by John Stanmeyer on malaria in the third world; and a prestigious award for general excellence.[2]
[edit] References and footnotes
[edit] See also
- Vokrug sveta (Russian: Around the World)
