Trade Journals: Helping or Hurting Readers?

Do trade journals help or hurt the health & fitness industry?


Being in the health and fitness industry for the past 27 years, I have seen a dramatic change in how the industry's trade journals have changed. Not only the reduction in the number of trade journals and/or the move to digital instead of print, but the quality of the articles.

How many trade journal articles are written by actual journalists? How many are written by people with real knowledge about the industry? How many are written by the advertisers? How many are stolen/re-posted from other news/blog sources? Have you ever tried to publish an article in one of the trade journals without having to advertise with them? How many times have you seen false information in an article? Even worse, would you even know if what you are reading is false?

Case in point, I know of a trade journal that re-posted a very inaccurate article on a health club owner, claiming that the Attorney General of that state alleged that the owner was defrauding his members. In reality, the owner was providing a much better service at a lower cost, and 99% of the members were very happy. It was later discovered that this erroneous story was nothing more than a witch hunt.  The health club owner spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, to prove that he did nothing wrong and actually followed the law as it is written. The publisher of the inaccurate article could have instead investigated this case as an abuse of power by a government agency -- something that would have actually informed others in the industry, and helped them better manage and protect their businesses.

However, when this was brought to the publisher's attention, they refused to take the time to investigate, and then wrote a supposed "retraction” in their next issue. They explained that they only reprinted from another source. So instead of investigating, one false story led to another.

Here's a more personal case: I recently sent an article to two individuals at Club Industry, asking if they would be interested in publishing what I'd written, which was about health club membership pricing and annual fees. (We do not advertise in Club Industry.) Months went by with no response from either person. Then in the February 2014 edition, an article appeared with almost the exact same information. When I confronted the author of the article the response was, “My apologies, I honestly did not read your email.. but in doing a search I see your email now… I did not look at your article…” This is very hard to believe, since the article was almost a word-for-word copy of my original article. Apart from this matter, I also wonder what it says about a publication, when two staff members do not even bother to read their emails.

You tell me: here is my article I sent to Pam Kufahl and Stuart Goldman of Club Industry on November 4, 2013, and here is the Club Industry article published February 2014.

It could very well be an honest mistake on Club Industry’s part, and Club Industry does do a better job than all the other industry trade journals. However, in this day of non-investigative reporting, having advertisers write content, and re-posting articles written by others, I am left to wonder what is really going on with the trade publication industry. Are they actually helping the industry they serve? What happened to real investigative reporting that helps the industry?

Let me know your thoughts.