Why is it that print magazines’ latest issues are one or two months away from the current date? I.e., Rolling Stone’s September 2002 issue being offered in July…
Publishing guy here.
It’s a cynical attempt to keep them on the shelves longer. In an ideal world, of course, all copies would sell out immediately and we wouldn’t have to resort to such, but it’s not and they don’t. Newsstand distributors don’t like carrying product with a date older than the present so they’re more likely to return them (and we’d have to credit them back…which we hate) if the date rolled over quickly.
By marking out the cover date we buy time.
And, on searching, I see the Perfect Master backs me up on this one:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_159.html
Dang. One I can answer and of course he beats me to it!
Curse you Cecil Adams!!!
There’s also a practical reason: the date tells newstand owners at a glance which magazines need to be pulled. If it’s something like Mad, that used to be published on a 45-day schedule, it makes it easier to figure that out.
At the magazine store I work at, I’ve found certain titles and certain subjects to be worse than others.
Most of our literary and news magazines list the actual month they appear.
Fashion and Car magazines, though, can be up to four months ahead.
I think it’s mainly the popular magazines that do this. Scientific journals are published during the month that appears on their cover. 