Dazed Media to Make Digital Issues Free Amid Coronavirus Lockdown
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One day after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled stringent new measures to battle the coronavirus, including banning public gatherings greater than two, Dazed Media is making digital editions of its magazines free to help entertain readers stuck at home.
For the first time, the British media company founded by Jefferson Hack will scrap fees on the fashion and style magazine Dazed’s spring/summer 2020 digital issue and will also make it available a week before the print edition goes on sale. A single digital issue usually costs 2.99 pounds, while an annual digital subscription is priced at 6.99 pounds.
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“Making this issue of Dazed free and available for everybody to download, wherever they are in the world, is a gift to all of our readers who are facing a whole new kind of present in the wake of this crisis,” Isabella Burley, editor in chief of Dazed, said.
“For us, it’s more important than ever to share stories that can educate and inspire, and to champion artists like our cover star Billie Eilish who is setting new and bright narratives for the future. We hope this issue will offer some much-needed inspiration to everybody in difficult times — and serve as a reminder that whilst we might be alone, we are in this together,” she added.
The digital edition of Another Man, Dazed Media’s biannual men’s fashion magazine, will also be available to download for free on April 6, a few days after the print issue is published.
As of now, future print issues of Dazed and Another Man will go ahead as planned, but this is not the same story for all British magazines. Free magazines Stylist and Time Out have this week had to suspend print issues because they are both handed out in public places.
Dazed Media is not the only publisher making digital issues free. In Italy, where citizens have been on lockdown for several weeks, Condé Nast Italy is offering digital copies of all its titles for free for the next three months, including Vogue, GQ, Wired, AD, La Cucina Italiana and Condé Nast Traveller. It also launched a Vanity Fair Italy issue dedicated to Milan, distributed for free in the Lombardy region, one of the most severely hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.
And in the U.S., magazines have been moving to lift the paywall on coronavirus content, including The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine and The Atlantic.
For more, see:
Ben Cobb is Leaving Another Man
How People Editor in Chief Produces the U.S.’ Biggest Weekly Magazine From His New York Home
Time 100 List and Summit Postponed Until September
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