Awake! and public Watchtower almost identical for appearance and content

by yadda yadda 2 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  yadda yadda 2

  I was in a Chinese take-out the other day and saw a couple of very recent Awake and Watchtower magazines on the counter, amongst other magazines.

  I had a good flick through both of them and noticed how very similar both magazines now appear in terms of appearance and content. I was left with the distinct impression that the public edition Watchtower is now basically indiscernable from the Awake! regarding content. The public Watchtower I perused did not even seem to have a greater 'Bible-based' content than the Awake.

  I could almost have switched the front title pages of both magazines and not been able to distinguish one from the other.

  It struck me as almost embarrassing how similar both magazines now are, one called Awake and the other Watchtower, both having the same style articles and content, size, format, etc.

  I'm sure many JW's must also be wondering what is the point of having both magazines now?

  I've suspected for a while now that they are about to drop one of these magazines entirely, probably the Watchtower (retaining only the JW study version), and this experience really reinforced my gut feeling this will happen before too long.
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Yeah, when they went down to one awake per month, they said it was because the awake would be changing to have a greater emphasis on biblical topics, and as such it was more similar to the WT so we didn't need two anymore. Essentially, they've directly admitted that there's no difference between them anymore.
• 

  breakfast of champions

  My prediction: Both public WT and Awake will be combined into one magazine called "jw.org." The WT study edition will remain.
• 

  suavojr

  The JW.ORG magazine sounds new and fresh for Jesus 100th birth of his kingdom
• 

  breakfast of champions

  Doesn't it?

  It has an it's-the-21st-century/centennial-anniversary-of-god's-kingdom-and-nothing-has-happened kind of ring to it.
• 

  NewYork44M

  The whole purpose of the Awake was to use excess printing capacity. Now that printing capacity is no longer a consideration in the eReader world, the justification to have two separate magazines no longer exists.

  The internet changes everything about magazine disribution, they should, and probably are, thinking about how things from the perspective of content and distribution. This new model negates the reason for having door to door sales reps (i.e. publishers).

  Perhaps they don't even need a magazine title. It is just information distributed and updated via JW.Org. Are they pushing information to Aps similar to how newspapers (i.e. New York Times) so that if you have a app you always get fed the proper food at the proper time?
• 

  blondie

  I noticed the large margins, the text is spread out farther, the material is at a 3rd grade level, lower than ever. If I were still a believing jw, I would be feel it was insulting to present to the non-jw.
• 

  Crazyguy

  Ever notice that they do or mean exactly the opposite of what they say. So they said they Awake was going to be more like the WT but instead the WT is more like the Awake..
• 

  steve2

  To eliminate one of their hallmark journals may be a step too risky for even this cost-cutting-obsessed organization.

  One solution would be to limit the title of The Watchtower to the study edition and to make the Awake! the sole public magazine - or to combine the titles of both magazines into one monthly public edition as, for example, Stay Awake with the Watchtower!

  There is a precedent for this in the secular press:

  Example 1: Before it went under, the Australasian and Pacific edition of Newsweek combined its circulation with the Australian Bulletin to become The Bulletin & Newsweek;

  Example 2, in Wellington New Zealand, two daily newspapers owned by the same company struggled to maintain profitability and one of them had to go. The morning newspaper, The Dominion and the evening newspaper The Evening Post were subsequentlycombined into a morning-only newspaper The Dominion Post.
• 

  OUTLAW

  .

  The Awake and Watchtower Magazines are Identified as WBT$ Products..

  The WBT$ Reputation is Crap around the World..

  .

  The WBT$ has hit a Home Run with JW.ORG..

  The WBT$ is still in the process of ReBranding to JW.ORG..

  It only makes sense they go with a Winner..

  A JW.ORG Magazine would be the Smart/Logical next step..

  .................................................................................................OUTLAW