I still do not recall when exactly was the first time I laid
my hands on the monthly magazine running for closer to about a one hundred
pages (or even lesser that it at times), measuring roughly the size of an
average adult palm and having a richly illustrated "half front" cover
being published out of several countries in English language. If you
hadn't managed to get the name by now, I am alluding to the "The Reader's
Digest".
The Readers' Digest is a one of its kind publication in that
most of the contribution to the magazine comes from the most valuable source –
its readers! That’s like you or I writing about literally anything – the
mundane, the exclusive trip that you might have had to the geographic poles,
scientific facts that you know about climatic changes and marking down what you
see and interpret from it – what not!
So, I had the worst experience with using a particular call
centre line. I just decide to just write up a foul one pager and send it out to
the editors and see if they would be supporting the tirade against it – NO.
That’s not what its contents are meant to be either. Its honestly a very tough job in keeping the
balance on what gets to be shunned and what gets to be retained for a
publication – specially if you have your readers and not the journalists being
your major contributors for the content.
How is this handled? I do not know an answer to that honestly.
But I am able to kind of decipher some pattern based on the continuous reading
I have done – mostly during my travel because this is a light hearted, light
weight book that can be fit in neatly just about anywhere you like – in your
shirt pockets too if you are adventurous enough!
Here are a few things I have managed to observe with the
setup of the magazine itself – the first section is some kind of a quiz section
(normally a word power one) whose answers are available elsewhere down the road
in another page. There is a definitely a
section for the humor in uniform. And of course, there is always the general
humor section too. The key thing being the same trademark of the content as
well – they are all reader contributions! There are of course, the iconic
caricatures / cartoons. Usually, there is one article that is an adventure.
Another one would be scientific. Yet another involving travel. All hold the
same rule – contribution from the readers is the primary piece. Political
writing is something I have often observed, is more of a passing reference than
mainstream content.
