Parade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70 million.[1] As of 2010[update], its editor is Maggie Murphy.[2] The previous editor was Janice Kaplan.
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The magazine was started by Field Enterprises in 1941. John Hay Whitney, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, bought Parade in 1958. Booth Newspapers purchased it in 1973. Booth was purchased by Advance Publications in 1976, and Parade became a separate operating unit within Advance.
The magazine is printed on newsprint, although usually a higher quality of newsprint than the rest of the newspapers it accompanies but of lesser quality than magazine paper.
The magazine has one main feature article, often a smaller feature article, and a number of regular columns. There is also a significant amount of advertising for consumer products, some with clipable coupons or tear-off business reply cards (known as Parade Answercards). Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising is common.
Parade Digital is a content distribution network that includes the web site Parade.com and 500+ of the magazine's partner newspaper web sites. It reaches nearly 42 million monthly unique visitors.
"Joining the right writer to the right idea, Parade consistently provides its readers with quality stories. That quality itself is defined by three elements: clarity, authority and substance. Each article must be clear in design and content and well researched and written with a voice of authority. It must also have substance, telling readers something they didn't know before and giving them an opportunity to affect change."
The magazine has a lag time to publication of about ten days. That arrangement has led the magazine to be criticized for its slow reaction to events.
The January 6, 2008 edition cover and main article asked whether Benazir Bhutto was "America's best hope against Al-Qaeda," after her December 27, 2007 assassination.[3] In response to reader and media[4][5] complaints, Parade stated on their website:
"Dear Parade Readers, Parade publishes more than 32 million copies of each issue and distributes them to 415 newspapers across the country. In order to meet our printing, distribution and insertion deadlines, we must send the issue to the printer three weeks before the cover date. Our Benazir Bhutto issue, for example, went to press on Dec. 19. By the time Ms. Bhutto was slain on Dec. 27, this issue of Parade was already printed and shipped to our partner newspapers. Recalling, reprinting and redistributing our January 6 issue was not an option."[6]
A similar incident, albeit of a lesser scale, occurred in the February 11, 2007 issue when Walter Scott's "Personality Parade" reported that Barbaro, an American thoroughbred racehorse, who was the winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby, was in "stable" condition. Barbaro had been euthanized on January 29, 2007.[7]
"What America Eats" is a yearly special issue of Parade usually issued within the dates of November 11-16. These issues are about new food products introduced in that year. Famous celebrities appear carrying food with them on the front cover.
