Sy Safransky is the founder and editor of The SUN magazine, an award-winning independent, nonprofit journal that has maintained itself and its readership for more than 28 years. It publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and interviews that live up to its motto, a statement by Viktor Frankl: “What it is to give light must endure burning.”
Darby loves The SUN . She’s always saying, “I can’t believe you don’t read The SUN .” For the record, I do pick it up from time to time. She loves the purity of the pub. Presumably so do the other 70,000 subscribers that help keep the Chapel Hill, NC operation afloat.
In a fund raising letter from Safransky, which I have before me, he discusses his battle to keep The SUN’s pages ad free.
As the planet staggers from catastrophe to catastrophe, do we really need yet another magazine filled with the kind of ads that romanticize the destruction of the natural world, deny moral complexity, and perpetuate the status quo?
He mentions in the letter that his methods may be quaint. That’s honest.
As a person who works in advertising, my reaction is why draw such deep lines in the sand? Selling ad space is not selling out and it’s not going to move the editorial direction of The SUN one iota.
I’m not saying The SUN should run ads, after all it is nice that such a magazine exists. I’m saying I would, faced with like circumstances. When brands sponsor great content, artists get paid. And everyone, especially artists, needs to get paid.