For those who are a member of the NMRA and receive both the NMRA Magazine and Model Railroader, did any of you happen to notice that the D&RGW narrow gauge layout article in the April 2013 Model Railroader is not only the same layout featured in the March 2013 NMRA Magazine? It is virtually the same article. I put both articles side by side and it would appear that the editors of both magazines did some editing of the author’s original work but more or less kept everything in the same position.
While the author and layout owner (Jim Hoffman) should be proud (and rightly so) to have his layout featured in 2 publications, I am personally disappointed that both publications ran the same article within a month of each other with both using it to promote the NMRA Convention in Atlanta this summer. With so many layouts out there, I would think this would not occur or I would have naively believed that the various publications coordinated with each other to some degree.
I don’t view this as a problem. With only 11,000 or so members, what is printed in the NMRA magazine is not viewed by that many people. Certainly, having an article published in two different magazines is not an unusual occurrence and too Mr. Hoffman’s benefit…
Guess I don’t see the problem. I think you’re using apples to compare to oranges here, though.
Generally, yes, publications try to avoid publishing the same article for the smack-your-forehead reasons you’ve cited…except when other circumstances prevail.
Maybe you’re just noticing this, but MR has always supported the NMRA National by publishing articles that preview some of the planned events and featured layouts.
Looking both articles over (I’ve already read the article in the NMRA Magazine, but just getting ready to read the MR article), the text is similarly organized – not at all unusual for a layout article – but if they originated from the same press packet, then there were extensive revisions that differentiate the text. As for the visuals, the pics are all different and MR includes a very nice graphical trackplan that was probably way over the budget that the NMRA’s publisher had available to work with.
There’s only so much space and time available from the volunteers organizing the convention and those opening their layouts to visitors that week. I can’t speak to whether there were other layouts represented in the press pack, but whatever is in it represents a lot of volunteer labor already. I suspect you’ll see several more similarly situated articles over the next couple of months in various publications, as the convention isn’t until summer.
Dr. Hoffman’s layout was certainly attractive to me – check my avatar [;)] – so I enjoyed both articles, even though I realize that might be too much Colorado narrowgauge for some. For some narrowgaugers, it was too much Colorado and not enough NG elsewhere, and I can see that POV, too. However, given the interest in NG, both articles clearly wanted to use that hook to get people to the convention – which I think is a shared goal between the NMRA and MR.
I don’t know that it is a real problem unless one considers it a moral issue. I know when I submitted an article to MR I had to basically swear on a stack of Bibles that I had not submitted it anywhere else for publication. So I don’t know how the author could have in good conscious signed such a similar paper knowing that it was also submitted to NMRA.
That’s possible if they were the same article…but they’re not. Just same topic.
I guess the best example I can think of is a comparison to daily papers. They’ll have many of the same, even identical, wire service (an antiquated concept in itself) articles. Even if they still have staff writers (another vanishing species) who write for them, they’re all working from the same set of facts – just like writing a layout article usually is. In this case, same author and photog, but that happens with the news, too.
Let’s throw a strawman into the argument, since that’s the way this thread has been drifting from the start. Maybe the NMRA should allow only one preview article to be published anywhere about the National Convention? One year it would by in MR, the next year it could be inthe newsletter of some tiny little division struggling to get by in the Midwest [;)], and then the next in RMC, etc? Doesn’t make sense to me from either MR or the NMRA’s viewpoint and, frankly, wouldn’t be good for the hobby. And you really can’t prevent people from writing about and publishing a news-worthy event (the convention and the associated show are pretty much the biggest annual model railroad event in the US) if they want, so the NMRA really couldn’t prevent someone from writing about them anyway.
Again, if you think this is anything new or unusual, it’s not. Happens every year, from what I’ve seen, and I sure don’t read all the mags and newsletters. There is some overlap between their readerships, but probably not as much as some might think. It’s all about marketing, just like most any other event and this is a big one, so you’ll see messages about it in multiple places.
BTW, Count me as a marketing skeptic, I read or hear about something and I’
I guess I don’t see an issue here. Was the original post just a simple announcement? If so, thanks for the heads up and interesting comment. If it is a complaint that because it appeared in two pubs in rapid succession one might feel cheated if taking both publications in which one could have used that space for another topic…Well, that is another issue.
A third option is possible here in that there might be copyright issues. Again, who really cares? I do know that a war is not going to break out between MR and the NMRA over this. A lot of similar publications often share similar articles and images, gratis, in concert with the author’s agreement.
I guess we will have to see if a court action begins (not likely), or just note this interesting coincidence as one of those rare occurances in publishing within our hobby. It was a good article and, as a narrow gauger, I was glad to see it in MR.
I guess I’ll be in the minority here. To me, it’s a problem since you pay a lot of money for each. I like to get what I pay for and duplicating the article is cheap and I haven’t seen a rebate–maybe a little harsh.
The NMRA and Kalmbach are connected somehow, so I don’t think there’s a copyright issue. The NMRA holds the Kalmbach library–which I have found to be VERY helpful.
Model Railroader supports the NMRA, so when our plans and convention plans align we gladly publish a story about a layout that will be open for tours during the convention. We don’t consult with other publications concerning stories they are using, nor would I expect other publications to consult with us.
We had this particular story on hand two years ago and scheduled it for spring 2013 publication. Jim Hoffman’s story in Model Railroader and the photos that Peter Youngblood took are not the same as those in the NMRA magazine (except perhaps for the photo of Jim himself). But given the author and photographer are the same in both stories, of course the two stories cover very similar ground.
There’s no conspiracy here, just a coincidence for better or for worse.
Also, the NMRA’s Kalmbach library is named after Al Kalmbach, who is our company founder and was one of the founders of the NMRA. The library is not named after Kalmbach Publishing Co. It’s a subtle but important difference. We support the library, but we have no role in its function or ownership nor do we have any role in the function of the NMRA.
Many years ago the NMRA Bulletin was looking for vertical model photos for their covers, and I sent off a handful. In the meantime I submitted an article on kitbashing a CN snowplow to “Model Railroading” magazine. I just so happens Model Railroading used one of my snowplow photos on the cover of their November 1996 issue, and the Bulletin used a different but similar photo of a different plow on their cover the same month too. The Editor of Model Railroading was slightly peeved, but it wasn’t anything I did. Same scene, different plows, different framing, but the two photos were somewhat similar. Just a coincidence.