What on earth happened to the magazines?

by slimboyfat 73 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  LisaRose

  Factfinder, this is a discussion board for former Jehovah's Witness, since you have posted 1546 times, you should know by now that we believe much of what the WTBTS prints is crap. Many here have wasted the best years of our lives in service to this organization, only to find out everything they taught was a lie. If you like reading the Watchtower that is your choice, but if you expect us not to be negative about it, well, that is not going to happen.

  I was a Jehovah's Witness for thirty years, and I read a lot of magazines. They are usually simplistic and written at a third grade level and contain little information that could not be gotten elsewhere, except for the latest flip flop on doctrines. After leaving I had to completely start over and weed out all the misinformation I had learned over the years. You would do better reading any other magazine. Readers Digest, for example has a lot better information and is much better written.
• 

  Violia

  I just got a care package of mags etc and I noted the same things. The mags look like comic books.They are very lightweight. Why don't they combine them?
• 

  wordyword

  If you want some real "meat" visit this website, ran by Steve Searles.

  http://www.theocraticcollector.com/

  It contains all sorts of "goodies" - talks, dramas, district conventions, old Watchtower publications, videos etc. He charges a "membership fee" for folks to download ripped off youtube videos etc. He is very rude by the way if anyone dares question him!

  The password for this site is "loveneverfails123" ;)

  I thought we "received free, give free?" Do the Governing Body approve of selling copyright material?

  Full back catalog of Watchtowers, Golden Ages, Photodrama, talks, EVERYTHING!
• 

  zeb

  I dared to make the tiniest comment on the mags being thinner smaller to my wife. She bounced back 'thats because so much is done on the internet'. The answer sounded like a min school pre prepared one.
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  Nosferatu

  I was flipping through the magazines the other day at my mom's place, and they really have changed them. It was like I was flipping through a children's magazine. The print seemed larger, the magazine felt smaller and lighter. The organization has mutated quite a bit since I left 18 years ago. I didn't think Truth could change so much in that time.
• 

  Ding

  I always thought of Awake as Watchtower Lite.

  I remember a stretch where it seemed like all the Awake contained was articles like, "Interesting Insects of Brazil."

  Never could understand why it was so important for JWs to go d2d with such "life saving" information...
• 

  factfinder

  LisaRose

  -yes I understand that many on jwn feel they wasted many of their years being a jw and feel negativly towards the organization and the magazines. If you read most of my earlier posts you will see that I was angry too and very dissapointed to find out certain things like the NGO/UN thing.

  But I had been negative for 7 years and it was making me very unhappy so I tried to become more objective. I like the wt publications. I am not interested in everything written, I don't necessarily agree with everything written. But there are things that interest me and encourage me. It's not all black & white.

  I was trying to make the point that I read other magazines in which I don't believe or agree with everything written but do find things of interest and that I enjoy and the same is true with the w&g.

  I understand there are some on jwn who still feel very negative. I had many bad experiences over the years with certain elders & publishers too. But I want to forget about those things or at least not let them make me feel so negative-they happened and I can not change what took place.

  I am not saying I like how thin the public w & the g have become, only that they are easier for me to read now and that the study edition contains the month's study articles, the "meat" and I like the new format in it.

  It must be a shock for someone who has not seen the magazines in a long while and was unaware of the change, like the OP.

  I usually did not read the entire g magazine when it was 32 pages but I do now.

  I guess they changed it to this new, thinner format because it makes it easier to translate the mags into more languages on their strict time schedule and of course it saves money. It does take getting used to how lightweight they are but if I now read every issue I am sure there are others too who now do so who did not do so before.

  Ding,

  I knew of people who prefered the g over the w (not me!) - it serves a purpose in reaching those who are not interested in reading a Bible study magazine but are willing to read a general interest magazine. Of course g directs readers to the Bible too.
• 

  Nosferatu

  I could honestly see the WTS moving toward dumping the public Awake & Watchtower for something simple, like a monthly tract. One page with a pretty picture on it, a little bit of fluffy text on it, and a link to jw.org promising a more informative article. They can't get rid of the publications entirely because they need to keep the R+F busy with life-saving work. As for the stuff printed exclusively for the R+F (with the exception of the exclusive Watchtower and Bibles) they can throw it all on their website for downloading. They could probably move the Watchtower onto their website and make the R+F print them off at their own expense to use at the meetings.

  Times are hard and money is tight. Gotta cheapen things up a bit more!
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  infernosdante

  i heard they were aquiring the rights to bring back grit magizine,cracked and mad magizine,oh yea and the maguffy reader
• 

  mP

  When you consider that out of a 16 page mag, 4 are lost to the cover, inside pages and back cover, that basically leaves at best 8 pages for actual content.