Maverick - standing the test of time and temptation

There are all sorts of telltale danger signs. Editorial that after the first few issues degenerates more and more into irrelevant, mediocre and gratuitous "lifted" content from overseas and stories from short-staffed editorial teams forced to cobble things together in a hurry.

Old chestnut

Then, of course, there are the cover pictures of the chairmen and CEOs of companies being profiled in the same issue and who, by strange coincidence, just happen to be big advertisers. And that old chestnut of the full page ad facing a page of editorial on the very product or service being offered in the adjacent ad.

Worst of all is the sin committed by a lot of South Africa's low circulation motoring magazines that should actually have died a natural death years ago, were it not for motor manufacturers keeping them alive to ensure continuous and guaranteed positive publicity. They never ever criticise a potential advertiser, product or company. Never ever. And they don't fool their readers one bit.

Made in heaven

It was so ludicrous that, when I was in the motor industry, I had to beg them to add some token criticism to their glowing articles about our cars just to bring at least a little bit of credibility to articles that made our cars look like they were made in heaven and designed by St Peter himself.

Having a look at the latest issue of Maverick - its 12th - I can see none of these warning signs. It seems to have stuck to its launch promise of editorial quality and integrity pretty well completely.

Holy cows

In fact, I rather got the impression fairly early on that Maverick was intent on proving to both readers and advertisers that it was not going to make the mistake of patronising advertisers, by head-butting some very holy cows.

For example, in a house ad promoting subscriptions, it boldly suggested that Camry owners need not bother. A great way of defining a target market but of course inevitably upsetting Toyota no end. I often wonder if the people at Maverick realised they were tweaking the tail of not only one of the country's biggest advertisers but a company that has a reputation of being very sensitive indeed to media criticism.

Maverick certainly seems to be going from strength to strength. Editor Branko Brkic and his deputy Phillip de Wet have shown tremendous courage and resolve in flying against traditional, conservative, business magazine convention and living out in much of what they do, the very promise of their title.

Kevin Bloom

And now, they have persuaded former editor of The Media magazine, Kevin Bloom, to join them in the role of editor-at-large. Certainly Bloom qualifies as a journalistic maverick and has built up an enviable reputation in a very short space of time for getting to the guts of good stories.

And judging from a radio interview recently, it seems that he is revelling in the rather rare privilege these days of having weeks and months to do stories, rather than having to get something out half-cocked in virtually no time at all.

Firewall

Recently I met with editor Branko Brkic and while I haven't heard of many people successfully coming out of the print repro industry and becoming great editors, he certainly seems to be heading very confidently in the right direction.

It was something of a pleasure for me to listen to someone talking about editorial with such passion and determination. And then switch on to matters advertising with equal determination and a resolve not to fall into the trap of pandering to advertising clients. The firewall is patently obvious.

Certainly, he seems to have impressed a lot of big-spending brands with his determined editorial stance and stoic refusal to kiss their butts with free plugs and other editorially linked incentives. Brands such a BMW, Jack Daniels, Fujitsu Siemens and a host of financial services companies such as Absa Capital, Allan Gray, Standard Bank, FNB and RMB. Cars, liquor, banks, cellphones, IT, airlines, hotels, air charter and so forth. The advertising A-list all seem to be there.

Success story

Clearly, Maverick is becoming something of a success story. By being determined and different. Unashamedly being mavericks themselves and equally unashamedly appealing to the mavericks among business magazine readers and beyond.

But, sadly, when you think about it, they're not actually being mavericks at all. It seems to me that they're just doing what magazine publishers and journalists are supposed to be doing anyway in terms of creating exciting products and good reads. It strikes me that we live in a country where, obviously with a few notable exceptions, the print media in general has for many years simply offered up the basic minimum in terms of editorial fare.

What Maverick has done is nothing more than bring back good old-fashioned print publishing and journalistic values. Values that should bring out the maverick in everyone involved.

Some of our big print media companies would do well to take a little time off from their petty internal squabbling and have a read of Maverick. They'd probably learn a lot about what life could be like.