Popular, but not mechanical

Continuing the series of interviews with representatives of Russian popular science magazines, we asked questions to the editor of the Popular Mechanics magazine, Dmitry Mamontov.

— How would you briefly formulate the magazine’s credo?

— American Popular Mechanics has a motto: “The way the world works.” When the Russian version of the magazine began publishing in 2002, this phrase was translated as “a magazine about how the world works.” In principle, it quite accurately reflects the magazine's credo. Sometimes, by the way, we are asked why mechanics appears in the title of the magazine, because the topics covered are in no way limited to this area. We have to explain that this is a historical heritage: the magazine began publishing in the USA in 1902, and at the beginning of the 20th century, mechanics was about the same cutting edge of science and technology as nanotechnology is now.

— How do you imagine your typical readers?

— Of course, we conducted research on our audience. The results were more or less expected: the majority of readers were young men with higher education. Along with the historical heritage of the country, by the way, this predetermines the interests of the audience. As a result, the magazine is very different from its foreign counterparts. In particular, from each issue of American Popular Mechanics we translate only one or two articles, and sometimes not a single one at all. And not at all because they are written for “dumb Americans” (this is, in fact, a widespread myth). It’s just that most readers there live in their own homes, and in American magazines you often find articles about how to make a garden bench with your own hands (with drawings and detailed instructions), change the brake pads on a 1980 Chevrolet in your garage, or tiling the wall. Russian realities differ significantly from American ones, and our audience is not at all interested in most articles from the American version.

What is interesting to Russian PM readers? First of all, there are materials about various weapons (this is precisely reflected in the historical heritage of the country), then there are articles devoted to other Soviet achievements - space and aviation. Well, then in the popularity chart there are articles about the structure of the world on a large scale - astronomy and cosmology. Interest in articles about science, by the way, is quite stable - again, this is reflected in the historical legacy of the USSR, where science was held in high esteem. Moreover, despite the increasing skepticism towards science in Russian society in recent years, this trend is not so pronounced among our readers. However, at least once a week we are sure to receive a call from some inventor of perpetual motion, antigravity, or simply a new “theory of everything,” but this, of course, is a separate issue.

In addition, we fully understand that in fact different people read us. Really different. Therefore, we are trying to make the magazine interesting for the widest audience - from schoolchildren and schoolgirls to pensioners and retirees. I must say, this is a rather difficult task, and it is not always possible. But we are trying.

— How do you look for authors? Who do you prefer: professional journalists, specialists (scientists, engineers), freelancers, etc.?

— From the point of view of staffing, all our authors are freelancers (that is, freelance), and, as far as I know, this practice is also generally accepted in other magazines. We only have full-time editors.

New authors appear in the journal in different ways. Authors who come with their own article proposals or even finished articles are usually welcomed with open arms (and, as far as I know, this does not only apply to our journal). Since the magazine is mainly devoted to science and technology, among the authors, as a rule, we prefer specialists with a technical or natural science education (my point of view is that it is easier to edit such a text from a literary point of view than to scientifically edit a text written by a professional journalist). It’s not even a matter of education, but of thinking - it’s just that, as a rule, techies and scientists have more systematic thinking. Although, of course, the topics are different, and the authors are also different, and no special mandatory requirements are imposed on the authors - in each case everything is decided individually. Of course, it is impossible to understand everything, so in all cases we strongly recommend that the author talk with an expert on the topic of the article.

If you need some article on a special topic, we look for authors - both independently and on the recommendations of our authors, acquaintances, colleagues (including from the Club of Scientific Journalists). The Internet is a good place to search: after reading a few blog entries, you can immediately roughly assess the level of erudition, qualifications and literary talent of the author. We've found some great writers this way over the last year. Very good authors are made from those who carefully read articles and then write letters with constructive criticism to the editor - such people, as a rule, know the subject of the article well and try to check the material several times with specialists, if necessary. This is exactly how I got into PM - I read the first issue of the Russian magazine (November 2002) and wrote a letter to the editor with a detailed analysis of all the factual errors in the issue (there were more than 40 of them), in which I offered my services as an editor and author .

— Magazines most often come from the interest of readers. How important and possible, in your opinion, is it to move from the statement “few people are interested in this yet, but it is important, and therefore we will try to popularize it”?

— In my opinion, truly important topics are always very interesting to readers. And the formulation “few people are interested, but important” simply means that readers do not have enough information on this topic. Therefore, the task of the magazine is precisely to give this information to readers and do it in a way that makes them interested. It is the latter that is precisely the most important and most difficult part of an editor’s job.

— Probably, not everything can be done within the strictly defined magazine format. What journals, in your opinion, are missing in Russia, and what prospects are there? For example, how do you feel about very narrowly focused magazines (for lovers of astronomy or ornithology, mathematics or archeology)?

— In Russia now there are not enough good, truly popular science magazines. There is no need to say that there is “no demand” for such magazines. You just need to take into account that the audience has changed a lot over the past 20 years (both in Russia and in other countries), and make appropriate changes in the presentation and subject matter of materials. In this case, it is quite possible to focus on Western experience, taking into account, of course, Russian specifics.

Highly specialized magazines will always have grateful readers, but there are few of them - this is, as a rule, a niche solution for the passionate.

— How important is additional activity (to the paper version): Internet versions, online discussions? Recently, your magazine organized a series of popular science lectures.

— Now it’s difficult to imagine a magazine without its own website, although one can argue about what should be on this website - a full archive, a summary of the issues, or something else. PM's policy is to post the full texts of articles after a month after the issue is published, i.e. when the next issue goes on sale. However, the Internet provides not only and not so much the opportunity to publish a complete archive of materials (as well as, say, a feed of thematic news and additional information not included in articles, photographs, videos, etc.), but also significantly expands the magazine’s capabilities in terms of interactivity , that is, prompt feedback from readers. For example, you can immediately see which topics are of interest to readers, and which the audience is indifferent to. The ability to leave comments allows readers to point out errors in articles (alas, no one is perfect) or simply ask questions to the authors and editors. This is what makes the magazine literally a living organism in the eyes of readers. And this living organism quickly evolves, constantly changing and adapting to the interests of readers, since they are the determining factor in the success of the publication - after all, this is a business project.

Interviewed
Sergey Popov