Calling in the Boss

After DoubleTake ceased publication, Testa says, its producers “never gave up on the magazine... [They tried] every idea in the book, every idea you could think of for fundraising, affiliation possibilities—you name it.” Eventually, yet another of Coles’ long-time friends stepped in: Bruce Springsteen.

“When he heard we were in some financial jeopardy, he offered to come up and sing for us,” Coles says. Characteristically, the two benefit concerts scheduled for late February ran into hurdles. At one point, Springsteen cancelled over a dispute about ticket prices and DoubleTake’s premature announcement of the events. When the issues were resolved, though, the concerts were a musical and financial success.

“It raised a huge amount of money for us,” Coles says, “and as a result of that event, we’ve paid off all our debts. The magazine was saved by those concerts, and by the enormous response of people who didn’t even go to the concert but who admired both what Springsteen was doing and the magazine.” There is not yet a final tally of the event’s proceeds, but the Boston Globe estimates them at between $800,000 and $900,000.

Coles says that Springsteen’s generosity grew out of a kinship he feels with DoubleTake’s mission. “If you listen to his songs and read his words,” he says, “that’s what he’s struggling with. To sing, equals to say, about the country, the troubled parts of it, the ordinary working people.”

Take Two

Springsteen’s intervention on behalf of DoubleTake speaks to a larger problem on the magazine’s horizon: Without a larger subscription base, the magazine may not be sustainable; and without a careful assessment of their philosophical priorities—which include the goal of reaching a broad audience—the editors risk losing the magazine itself. There is no reason why DoubleTake must necessarily pursue a mass audience, but it has included this mission among its stated aims.

Asked about the magazine’s success in projecting its lessons, Coles says, “I would leave that for our readers to decide. We hope and try to live up to that vision, and that example…If I start answering that for you, I’m undermining the very philosophical and moral purpose of the magazine.”

If the magazine disappears from readers’ newsstands and mailboxes, though, the question of whether their horizons have been suitably broadened becomes moot. As such, Coles’ and Testa’s refusal to speculate about the magazine’s popular appeal, its potential for growth, or any other aspect of the publication process beyond their philosophical mission, may be a liability.

Coles says the editors are “brought together by a shared sense of what we’re trying to do… Observation, and then rendering the observed for others through words and pictures… There’s the creative side, the narrative side, presentation—but the publishing side has to be a division of labor.” This refusal to compromise the editorial mission for commercial concerns is understandable; but a complete divorce of the two efforts necessary to fulfill that mission has not helped the magazine’s cause.

On this point, Testa’s response to a question about how DoubleTake might extend its reach beyond the intelligentsia is telling: “We do pieces that are more about regular people living their lives,” he says. The magazine will reach a broader audience, Testa argues, through an ongoing effort to “maintain the quality of the magazine, and to try to expand the readership…through the sorts of pieces that we run. We’ve won every major award that a magazine can win in a short period of time.”

These awards, distributed by groups that represent the narrowest possible definition of intelligentsia, have very little to do with the process of reaching “regular people.” And Testa’s statement that DoubleTake’s location within the overall media landscape isn’t an editorial concern because “we do what we do out of a conviction” does not inspire much hope for its eventual triumph over financial insecurity.

None of this is to discount the efforts of the magazine’s publisher and Board of Directors, without which it would never have lasted as long as it has.

But Springsteen has succeeded in disseminating his art—not just because he works within a more commercial medium, but because he has made the compromises that a popular music career inevitably entails.

DoubleTake’s editors are, admirably, prepared to pursue their abstract dream no matter what the costs. But if they continue to depend on the borrowed popularity of another artist—even one whose philosophy intersects so closely with their own—the ultimate expression of Dr. Coles’ worthy mission may cease to make its mark.

—Staff writer Dan Wagner can be reached at dwagner@fas.harvard.edu.