On Saturday, Oct. 3, Surfer magazine Editor Todd Prodanovich posted an Instagram with the caption, “This is the last issue of Surfer magazine. The whole staff got let go yesterday… I’ll really miss … the mag in general, which ends on this issue after 60 years of publication.”
By Sunday, the news spread rapidly across social media, and it was soon discovered that the cuts included not just Surfer, but other American Media titles Powder, Snowboarder and Bike as well.
On Monday, Oct. 5, Powder Editor-in-Chief Sierra Shafer posted an update on the web confirming the news in more detail. “As we are all painfully aware, Covid-19 has dramatically impacted our lives this year, leaving the future shrouded in uncertainty. There is little it hasn’t touched and, going forward, this now includes Powder magazine. On Oct. 2, we were notified by our parent company A360 Media, LLC (formerly American Media, LLC) that our entire editorial staff will be placed on indefinite furlough, effective Nov. 20, 2020, when operations of the magazine, our website, and our social channels will be paused. We do not know if or when this hiatus will end,” Shafer wrote.
This furlough is the same for Snowboarder magazine, the staff of which will complete two more issues and continue to promote the Dew Tour, which is also part of AMI’s Adventure Sports group through November.
The decision came from AMI CEO David Pecker, who also heads up National Enquirer and notably in 2018 found himself under investigation for using catch and kill payments, in which AMI purchased the exclusive rights to stories that might have been damaging to Trump’s 2016 campaign for president and then refused to publish them.
This news very well could be the end of the magazines, which collectively have provided 200 years’ worth of issues and are of great cultural significance; however, it’s not over yet. The staff of Snowboarder specifically, led by Rutland-native Pat Bridges, is not liable to just let the magazine, which is the last-standing major national publication dedicated to snowboarding disappear.
