WILMINGTON — Known for its glossy pages filled with quality photography and unique (and previously untold) stories, Salt Magazine has published its last issue this month, ending an eight-year run in Wilmington.
The publication will leave a void in the Wilmington market after establishing itself as a quirky and colorful monthly magazine. Salt Magazine’s eclectic collection of work set the publication apart from other outlets through its commitment to quality over everything.
This commitment to quality may have contributed to the magazine’s local demise. The business model is working well in other markets, according to its publisher, where The Pilot LLC plans to continue printing other similar publications set up with the same blueprint as Salt. But in Wilmington, the magazine’s publisher and editor say the revenue-generating side just never took off, despite devoted reader engagement.
Quality product, quality advertisers
“The way it works is we gave the community a $10 magazine for free,” publisher David Woronoff said. The idea is quality advertisers want to be associated with a quality product, Woronoff explained.
This arrangement was a bit like a “covenant” with advertisers, editor Jim Dodson said. “They realize it’s a beautiful magazine that looks like its a $10 magazine. And it is. That takes money and you can see it. They can see it’s thoughtful journalism, produced and designed beautifully,” Dodson said. “Our theory has always been — and it’s been successful — quality advertisers would want to be associated with a magazine like that.”
But with only so many higher-end advertisers to share in an already crowded media market, Woronoff said print-shy agencies didn’t show the support required to make the local venture profitable.
“We thought we could stand out by our editorial product we put forth. And after seven years, we just never could really breakthrough,” Woronoff said.
Salt’s dissolution was exacerbated by the economic impacts of Covid-19, which has rocked nearly all local businesses, including operations that rely on advertising revenue. Ad dollars shrink when consumption is down, and Woronoff said the local publication just couldn’t survive past the last couple of months. The May/June 2020 issue is shorter than usual, at 65 pages, due to a lack of ads (most issues had a spine with a thicker feel; the last was stapled while still maintaining high-quality pages).”When you’re sort of marginal operation and then you hit a disruption like this, that just makes it completely unsustainable,” he said.
Still, advertisers didn’t flee the same way in other markets, Dodson said. Dodson got the sense that Wilmington has a pay-to-play atmosphere, with businesses expecting free stories written about them in exchange for buying ads. “‘We’d love to advertise if you’d write a story about us,'” Dodson said the group would hear. “That’s not journalism. That’s PR.”
Art & Soul
Woronoff said The Pilot will proudly continue publishing its other magazines (which like Salt, each dub itself the “art & soul” of the region) including PineStraw out of Southern Pines, Southpark in Charlotte, O.Henry in Greensboro, and Seasons, a style and design spin-off of O.Henry.
“We were much more warmly embraced by the business community in those other markets. Same printer, same editor, same designer. Wilmington, for whatever reason, we couldn’t keep their attention,” he said.
From a family of well-renowned journalists, the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame member first published Salt in June 2013. “We’re mourning. You pour your heart and soul into something for seven years. It’s tough to let it go.”
A cover from that first year featuring Santa on a stand-up paddleboard delivering presents through the marsh remains one of Woronoff’s favorites to date. The 2014 Movie Issue also ranks high in Woronoff’s mind.
Dodson said May’s cover, featuring an aerial shoreline shot by Hank Carter, is one of the magazine’s most attractive to date.
Salt’s issues maintained a light-hearted tone but were filled with well-researched and often historic pieces that can often go deeper than the daily news cycle allows. With a focus on personal storytelling, recipes from beloved local chefs and bartenders, and eccentric homes, Salt did not bore.
“It has a sense of humor and doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously,” Dodson said. “I knew starting out this was going to be a different kind of city magazine.”
Working with a team of skilled local writers, Dodson counts recruiting this line-up as his most fulfilling work at the magazine, including Virginia Holman, Clyde Edgerton, Wiley Cash, and more. “Just a great, great group of people. They understand the city, they really got the pulse of the city so well,” Dodson said of his group of contributors. “Part of the belief in the mission is to give a platform for fine, emerging writers to tell stories about the city and its culture and its history. But also add a different lens on the story.”
Dodson said he would regularly receive twice as much reader feedback from Salt compared to The Pilot’s other sister publications. “The magazine didn’t fail for lack of interest for the readers or people in Wilmington, who embraced the magazine robustly,” Dodson said.
“It will always have an extremely special place in my heart,” he said.
Archives of Salt Magazine are available online. The May/June 2020 issue is still available at select locations.
Send tips and comments to Johanna Ferebee Still at [email protected]
