Of course magazines (and radio and TV etc etc) are supported by their advertisers, there's certainly nothing new about that. What annoys people is when they pretend to give "100% Unbiased Reviews" and recommendations about the stuff they're being paid to promote. Many find it insulting to their intelligence.
I think for the writers and editors, and of course the publishers as well yes, but more so for the writers and editors, it can be like navigating a mine field, somewhat like walking a tight rope over a fine line between fire and ice. Fall too far, or lean too heavily to, one side and your readership grows cold. Fall to the other and you get burned by alienating advertisers and costing the publishers money. I think, and this is just my opinion, that ideally reviews done professionally for magazines should be neither glowing nor scathing. They may even be better off done purely objectively and rather clinical. No opinions, just what can be done with what is there to work with. However we are all humans not machines, and try as we might, our opinions sometimes shine through more often than wished. Besides, if it read like a medical journal it would be pretty boring. So some bias is inevitable, and the task becomes to accept that you're human, and let some of your personality show through, but realize that opinions are just that, and yours may be the complete opposite of others. Be it a majority or a minority, doesn't change the fact that it is still just an opinion.
Lets take some of your knives for instance, and I'd like to preface this by saying we have talked a few times and you already know that I personally like a few of your models. You do some very nice looking work. That custom re-curve is sweet, and I hope to pick up a Strix model for this summer and autumn. Which by the way, speaking of opinions, I happen to personally see as a model that would suit me much better in bushcrafting tasks than your Bushcrafter...but I digress. Let's just say I have a one of your camp knives for review, and in with the write up I posit that it "has too much belly and not enough point". Then the question becomes too much belly, not enough point for whom, for what? That it has too much belly and not enough point for me personally (if it did), and my style of knife use over-all is completely irrelevant, and has no place in my review, unless I put into the context of too much and too little to efficiently perform specific tasks as well as might be otherwise. Now, you and I...and many others, all know that the deep sweep and obtuse point are major factors in the weight distribution which contributes directly to the knife's chopping ability. As well as working better at skinning and processing large game if pressed into this service better than a pointy knife would. Say I was doing a review on your Fugitive model, and did food prep with it, (yes I visit your photos now and then
) then complained about how the guard interfered with getting the entire edge on the cutting board. The side of me that has spent countless hours in various kitchens as a prep cook would probably agree with that statement, but the side of me that understands the design, loves he contours of the handle, and the intent of the blade geometry, would very much disagree with it.
The world is a big place, with lots of preferences and opinions. I think all positives and negatives are really nothing more than opinions, and very subjective. Just as I have a tendency disagree with movie critics, and seem to like a lot of their thumbs downs, and dislike a lot of their thumbs ups. I have read a lot of magazines over the years, and from Car magazines to gun magazines and everything in between, one thing has always held true. Neither the text nor the photos ever tell the whole story sufficiently. There is only room for so much text and so many photos in any given article. So, you take the text into account, cross reference it as well as possible with the photos used, and then look for clues to negatives in the article body itself. What is mentioned and how, what is not mentioned much or at all? If the article is written well enough, then I think everything you'll want to know about the knife is in there somewhere if you look. It just may not be spoon-fed to the reader.
There has been a lot said about TK and the writers being paid “big bucks” by advertisers for glowing reviews, and I find that very interesting. It's funny how people can just presume to know something and run with it. Considering the reason I was given for the magazine being pulled by the parent company was that there was no longer enough advertising money flowing into the magazine, and I heard nothing at all about subscriptions or sales being too low. This really doesn't define anything any clearer, lots of factors could be involved here in the present economy. However it really doesn't support the theory of the writers being paid big bucks for glowing reviews. It would better support a theory that the companies were not getting the glowing reviews they wanted and stopped spending their money. As a writer, you hate to lose either the readers or the advertisers, either stings for different reasons. But as a writer, if one or the other has to be lost, having lost the advertisers rather than the readers, leaves one with the feeling that they were at least succeeding in their attempts at staying true to the cause.
I bet Brian is going to miss all those big bucks he was "paid to promote" knives in TK, right Brian?
Yes, very much, and just when I had my retirement in Bermuda all planned out
I think if more people realized how much time we put into testing knives in the field over the course of weeks, versus how much pay is involved, they would consider us all insane...
Second, I believe you learn faster on the forums(especially on things like tools) because of the varied backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. To sift through the BS only takes half a brain but you could just go with consensus and be pretty well off. Also, why on earth wouldn't I be AS skeptical of print media as I am of the interwebs? I use the same BS filter for both. I can't see why anyone would treat them differently in that regard.
