Trudeau scandal aside, Time is ramping up live events—and coming down hard on Juul

Welcome to the latest edition of Ad Age Publisher’s Brief, our roundup of news from the world of content producers across digital and print.

Time 100 + 100 + 100

Time magazine is currently making headlines around the world—e.g., “Trudeau apologizes after 2001 brownface photo published by Time magazine,” from Canada’s Global News (which followed up with its own scoop: “Video shows Trudeau in blackface in 3rd instance of racist makeup”). We’ll defer to all the other news outlets obsessing about the unfolding scandal engulfing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and note that in a couple ways the timing of the news break is a little unfortunate for Time.

First, because the Trudeau story is overshadowing the fact that the magazine is out today with a strong cover story (online now and hitting newsstands in print tomorrow), “The New American Addiction,” with the subhead “How Juul Hooked Kids and Ignited a Public Health Crisis” (which doubles as the headline for the web version of the story). Time’s Jamie Ducharme writes,

To a remarkable degree, a single company is front and center in one of the biggest public-health crises facing the country: the sharp rise in vaping among teenagers and young adults. In 2018, 30% of the nation’s 12th-graders reported vaping nicotine at least once in the past year, according to a January 2019 study sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study said the increase in vaping last year was “the largest ever recorded for any substance in the 44 years” that it has tracked adolescent drug use. Though Juul is not the only e-cigarette for sale in the U.S., it is largely blamed for the vaping explosion and controls about 50% of the market, putting a sharp focus on the company. 

Keep reading here.

Meanwhile, Time also hoped to make a bit of noise about itself today—specifically, that it’s doubling down on its already impressive events business. The flagship “Time 100” event, which each year brings together an unlikely mix of world leaders and A-list celebrities to celebrate the magazine’s list of the “World’s Most Influential People,” is one of the publishing world’s highest-wattage events—and it was already expanded earlier this year from a gala to the day-long Time 100 Summit. Today, Time is announcing that it’s further growing the “100” franchise by bringing the Time 100 Health Summit and the Time 100 Next Summit to New York on Oct. 17 and Nov. 14, respectively.

The latter event will “highlight the 100 individuals who are shaping the future of their fields”—so we’ll have to wait a bit to find out who’s going to be involved, because they’ll be revealed in a companion issue of Time. But the health event is already largely booked, with confirmed speakers including former Vice President Al Gore, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Mehmet Oz and more. More details here.

Escape plan

Even more event-publishing news: Beloved “live magazine” Pop-Up Magazine and its sibling The California Sunday Magazine are teaming up to bring a stage show titled “The Escape Issue” to venues across the country. Friday’s edition at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco (Pop-Up/California Sunday’s hometown) is already sold out, but tickets are still available for upcoming shows in Oakland (9/21), San Diego (9/23), Los Angeles (9/26), Vancouver (9/28), Washington, D.C. (10/7), New York (10/10) and Chicago (10/12).

Publisher’s Brief gave a rave review to the spring issue of Pop-Up Magazine, which sold out Brooklyn’s historic Howard Gilman Opera House; this time around for the New York show the Pop-Up team is taking over David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center.

Each Pop-Up event is structured very much like a magazine, with standalone shorts and features in the form of multimedia presentations led by individual contributors—who for “The Escape Issue” will include comedians Jo Firestone and Jordan Carlos; poet Sarah Kay; writers Chris Duffy, Clio Chang and Keri Blakinger; musician Left at London; and photographers Lucas Foglia and Lisette Poole. The evening runs a couple of hours with an intermission, and none of it is put online. So see it live or forever miss out.

Just like a magazine, Pop-Up has ads. But really good ads—in the form of interstitial multimedia presentations (created in collaboration with the Pop-Up/California Sunday Brand Studio) from sponsors, who for “Escape” will include Google, Lego, Amazon Studios, Chanel and more.

Briefly:

• “Town & Country Hops on ‘Downton Abbey’ Movie Carriage” (subhead: “T&C is rolling out a ‘Downton’-themed digital takeover and a special newsstand edition as the movie creates a true marketing bonanza”), via WWD’s Kali Hays.

• “Google, Facebook Cozy Up to Publishers as Regulators Circle” (subhead: “Facing mounting antitrust probes, tech platforms offer fees, news-ranking changes media outlets have pursued for years”), from The Wall Street Journal’s Lukas I. Alpert.

And finally…

This actually makes us really anxious: “BBC experiments with negative news filters on its homepage to help readers with anxieties” (subhead: “As one third of audience switches off from news, the public broadcaster is testing a tool that would allow readers to blur out stories that may impact their mental health”), from Journalism.co.uk’s Marcela Kunova.