Reply #19: Asimov's Response [View All]

[Book Lover]

http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0403/response.shtml

Reporter Kristi Andersen and the News 8 anchors portrayed the QSP magazine drive as children buying and selling magazines. As a matter of fact, in this fundraising drive, students sell magazines to their family, their neighbors, and their parents’ coworkers. We reviewed the QSP catalog with the reporter and showed her that many of the magazines are for adults, including Esquire, Vogue, GQ, and Elle. As we showed the reporter, the QSP catalog has a section specifically geared to children, and indicates age-appropriate titles. Asimov’s was correctly listed in the catalog, not under "Children," but under "Science/Technology/Environmental." The reporter chose not to include this information in her report, and, in fact, said that we "did not know it was on the school magazine list."

In Ms. Andersen’s report, she stated that QSP dropped Asimov’s as a result of the parent’s complaint and News 8’s subsequent investigation, saying the "magazine has now been pulled from the list," and that "since 24 News 8 started this investigation, QSP has permanently severed its relationship" with Asimov's. In fact, we provided Ms. Andersen with documentation showing that our relationship with QSP ended several months earlier over remit rates (the amount of money the publisher receives from the agent for each subscription the agent sells), not as a result of this incident.