“Best Magazine Relaunch Ever, Bar None…”  Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni

Field & Stream is back in print. Let me start by telling you that, editor in chief Colin Kearns and his team, with this relaunch issue, not only captured the essence of the past of Field & Stream, but also presented it in such a modern way for the present with a solid foundation for the future. I’ve been following the magazine industry for almost like 45 years and I have seen some good relaunches over the years, starting with relaunch of Life magazine in 1978, and a few good ones in the last few years such as Creem, Saveur, Nylon, to name a few, but “I’ve never seen a relaunch like what you’ve done,”  I told Colin in an in-depth interview I did with him two weeks ago.

The relaunch is the brainchild of two celebrity country music stars, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen, who Colins credits, “They are both lifelong outdoorsman, and they grew up with Field & Stream. They take a lot of pride being a part of it.”

The goal of the relaunch is to honor the “legacy and tapped into what Field & Stream once was and used to be, but also like what it can be going forward to a new generation of hunters, fishermen, hikers, and campers,” Colin told me.

And now for my interview with Colin Kearns, editor in chief, of Field & Stream.  But first the sound bites:

On naming the owners Eric Church and Morgan Wallen “Legacy Steward”: To their credit, that was their idea to take that.  I can’t remember what the other suggestions or ideas for titles that we threw their way, but none of them quite fit right. And, and we settled on legacy stewards, because the two of them really do take this very seriously:  The Field & Stream brand and their stake and role within it.

On the first order of business for the new owners: And sure enough, the first kind of order of operations, we’re bringing back the magazine.  It’s going to be a biannual coffee table style book, premium as can be, nice paper, oversized format. And I was like, really, we’re doing this.

On the power of print in this digital age: There’s no distractions, there’s no screens. They just get to lose themselves in the outdoors. And I like to think that with the stories we’re telling in print, that we can come close to replicating that.

On the relationship with the audience:  Field & Stream always had a very strong communal essence to the brands. A lot of our readers feel they know our writers. They’re the kind of household names and they’ve come to know them very well.

On the creation of the 1871 club: Hunting and fishing are communal activities. They’re very family oriented. They are pursuits that you do with friends and family. We’d like to kind of replicate that with Field & Stream as a brand and to create this 1871 club.  It’s something our audience will want to be a part of.

On his expectation of the first issue: I’d like to think that we either met or exceeded expectations with this first issue and that when they see it or, or they get their hands on it, this is something I want to own and keep forever.

On readers reaction to the first issue: I put my email address in my editor’s letter, hoping that people would reach out directly to me. And they have.  I’ve had one person said when they saw their first issue, they started crying because they were so happy.

On the Legacy Stewards: They’re both great storytellers. They’re artists and musicians. That’s how they make their living, but they’re really good storytellers. And that goes a long way in my book. So I’m happy that they’re part of the team and have new stories to share.

And now for the lightly edited my in-depth interview with Colin Kearns, editor in chief of Field & Stream:

Samir Husni: I’ve seen a lot of relaunches. There were good relaunches, but this takes the cake.

Colin Kearns: Thank you very much. It means the world to me.

There was a lot of pressure to get this right. We felt that every step along the way of relaunching the magazine.

Samir Husni: How does it feel working for celebrity owners? I noticed they are referred to as “Legacy Stewards.”

Colin Kearns: To their credit, that was their idea to take that.  I can’t remember what the other suggestions or ideas for titles that we threw their way, but none of them quite fit right. And, and we settled on legacy stewards, because the two of them really do take this very seriously:  The Field & Stream brand and their stake and role within it.

They are both lifelong outdoorsman, and they grew up with Field & Stream. They take a lot of pride being a part of it. But just like myself, I think they felt the pressure to get this launch just right. To make sure that we not only honored the legacy and tapped into what Field & Stream once was and used to be, but also like what it can be going forward to a new generation of hunters, fishermen, hikers, and campers.

In terms of working for them it’s been fantastic, because they’re kind of staying out of the way. I mean when they came into it, I don’t think they had any ambitions or aspirations of this being the Eric Church journal or the Morgan Wallen journal. They don’t have these egos where it’s like, this has to be all about me.

They just wanted to put everyone else within the company, within Field & Stream, in a place to succeed. They’re helping with guidance, or direction, or however they’re needed. But they’re being, especially on the magazine, and from a content standpoint,  they’re being pretty hands off, because they have a lot of trust in the editorial staff and in me to know that, ‘they’re the experts on this. We’ll  let them do their thing.’  We’re here for them when they need us.

Samir Husni: You’re not new to Field & Stream. You’ve been there 16 years and you wrote about that this issue was like coming home to you. Can you expand a little bit?

Colin Kearns:  I can take a step back and say around this time last year, when we were with Recurrent, I wasn’t in a great place with my career, if I’m being perfectly honest, I didn’t love my job. I can’t say I even liked my job. We had gone far away from where Field & Stream was.  The Field & Stream that I fell in love with, the Field & Stream that I had enjoyed working for pretty much my entire professional career.

When Recurrent acquired us in 2020, one of the first decisions they made was to sunset the print magazine, not just for us, but Outdoor Life, Popular Science, and Saveur, plus the other titles that they acquired at that time. I understood that. I didn’t begrudge them, I knew that print was not part of their business.

At the time, it kind of made my peace. I had a great run with this magazine. The last issue we printed in 2020 was our 125th anniversary issue, which was, at the same time,  125 years and now it’s gone.

So that was kind of bittersweet. I felt like the last issue we went out swinging. And I was like, if this is the last print issue of Field & Stream, we did our best. We can be proud of that. And for a while there Recurrent was good. They were investing in staff, and we had a lot of momentum going.

But then, maybe two years into that part of Field & Stream’s history, things just changed very gradually. It seemed like one day, I woke up and looked at fieldandstream.com. And I saw nothing but clickbait stories or commerce stories about products that had nothing to do with Field and Stream. We were doing stories about skiing boots, and we don’t cover skiing.

We were doing stories about different animal poop, because it’s like, this is what people are searching for. These are the kind of SEO terms we could go after. And it was just like what’s happened to Field & Stream? Where have we gone? This is so far away from, from the Field &Stream that I grew up loving, the Field & Stream that I’d loved working for over a decade.

All the great storytelling , we were known for, was nowhere to be found on the site. And I just felt like I’d gone so far away from the Field & Stream that I loved, and was so near and dear to me, and also to our audience. I was just like what am I doing here? This is not a place I want to be.

And then, lo and behold, there was a meeting last October, where the new investors approached us, and I had a meeting with my boss, and the CEO of the company. This meeting was on a Monday morning, and it was put on my calendar at the last minute. When I saw that the CEO was on the call, I was like, I might be losing my job here.

Calls like this don’t typically happen. As the call went on, it dawned on me that Recurrent was in the process of selling Field & Stream to what is now our new owners. As I learned more about the new direction that the new owners wanted to take,  they kept bringing up the print magazine,  and getting back to our heritage.

It’s like, this all sounds great, but part of me was very skeptical. This is too good to be true. They’re not serious about bringing back the magazine, no way that’s going to happen.

The sale went through, we came over to the new company at the end of last year. And sure enough, the first kind of order of operations, we’re bringing back the magazine.  It’s going to be a biannual coffee table style book, premium as can be, nice paper, oversized format. And I was like, really, we’re doing this.

Eventually it became clear; this isn’t too good to be true. This is happening. Once I started to get back into that work with the rest of the edit team, it felt like a homecoming.

All of a sudden we were able to tell the stories that we’d love to tell, we were starting to be more ambitious, we could take a story that might only be 3000 words and give it 12 pages, because the photography was so spectacular. As we were working on his first issue, I’d almost forgotten how much I love this work and how meaningful it is to me. When I was working on my letter for this first issue, this theme of homecoming just came to me because it felt like a family reunion with all the writers and photographers that we used to work for and getting to work with them again.

The readers that love Field & Stream had missed getting it in their mailbox. Just working on print and seeing these stories in this format felt like coming home again. It was really special.

Samir Husni: What do you feel is the role of print in today’s digital age?

Colin Kearns:  It’s an experience that you can’t get digitally. There’s a lot to be said for what we can do with our digital content. We take that very seriously. That’s where our audience comes for the latest reviews and recommendations for gear. That’s where they come for, for seasonal how-to stories, whether it’s hunting or fishing or camping, or the latest outdoor news, whether it’s about hunting or fishing or conservation.

I think that all fits within the digital realm of what we’re doing, but where print, there’s a lot to be said for just logging off and getting away from screens and sitting down with the magazine and enjoying these stories at a slow pace and immersing yourself in them where you’re not getting distracted. Something we say about the magazine is that we like to think it’s the next best thing to being outside. I think a lot of what our audience, our readers, a huge thing they enjoy about getting outside and hunting and fishing is, is they get to get away from everything.

There’s no distractions, there’s no screens. They just get to lose themselves in the outdoors. And I like to think that with the stories we’re telling in print, that we can come close to replicating that.

We’re telling stories that are aspirational, that are inspirational that allow you to escape. Reading them in a print format is the only way to truly experience those stories.

Samir Husni: You created the 1872 Club membership as part of the relaunch. Do you feel that is part of the essence of print these days is that you have to be part of not only the ownership of the magazine, but also the membership to feel that you belong  to a group?

Colin Kearns:    I think it’s a really nice thing.  Field & Stream always had a very strong communal essence to the brands. A lot of our readers feel they know our writers. They’re the kind of household names and they’ve come to know them very well.

Hunting and fishing are communal activities. They’re very family oriented. They are pursuits that you do with friends and family. We’d like to kind of replicate that with Field & Stream as a brand and to create this 1871 club.  It’s something our audience will want to be a part of.

I think the magazine is what everyone’s most excited about and getting that. But in addition to that this is a new era for the brand and we don’t want people to be just subscribers to a magazine. We do obviously want but we also want them to feel they’re a part of something because, not to sound cheesy, but this is a new era for the brand.

We want to bring our audience in with it and make them feel part of it, because for three and a half years there was no magazine coming to people’s homes. A lot of them felt betrayed by that because just overnight the magazine went away and they never got it and  they never really got a reason why.

A huge challenge with this first issue when we made the announcement that print was coming back was that we had to kind of re-earn their trust. No one knew what this first issue was going to be  when we made the announcement back in January that Field & Stream was coming back in print.  I’d like to think that we either met or exceeded expectations with this first issue and that when they see it or, or they get their hands on it, this is something I want to own and keep forever. Field & Stream is something I want to be a part of.

Samir Husni:  What was the most challenging moment in putting this issue together?

Colin Kearns:  Back in January, I flew to Nashville where we had a team meeting, a company meeting, and I essentially pitched my concept for the magazine from the structure and the themes that I wanted to do for this year and the stories I wanted to tell.

I pitched my budget for what this was probably going to cost. I’ll never forget it when I was done. I guess I was pretty impassioned when I was sharing this  and really trying to, to get everyone behind me.

When I was done, everyone applauded, in the conference room, they’re like, this is great: Go. And  Doug McNamee, the boss, the president said, great, now go do it.

I was elated when he said that, but on the flight home, I was like, oh shit, we’ve got to do this now. It was on a quick timeframe. I mean we got approval to start going forward in January. We had to be done with this thing in March and it’s a 160 page issue that we started from scratch. So getting everything done on a short time was very challenging. These were like muscles, editorial muscles that I hadn’t exercised in a long time. Three and a half years is a long time to go without publishing a magazine.

Now, obviously in that time we were doing a digital version of the magazine at Recurrent, but it’s not the same at all. I’d just forgotten how hard it is to produce a magazine and how much work it is. Every time I told that to people, I made sure  I’m not complaining because this is the most fun I’ve had at work and the most fulfilled I’ve felt in a long time, but it is hard work putting out a magazine.

Also the pressure that we’ve all put ourselves on. We took the magazine away from readers and now here we bringing it back and asking for a significant investment. It’s not an inexpensive magazine. We wanted to make sure that what we were producing would be worth it.

Samir Husni: And what was the most pleasant moment?

Colin Kearns: We’re obviously all work remote,. In the old days at Field & Stream, when we were working on an issue pages would be passed around the office and you’d edit on paper.

Now obviously that’s not how it is. We’re editing on PDFs sending them via Slack or email. And it’s like, all right, it’s your turn.

So even though I knew every single page of the issue, like the back of my hand, I’ve read all the stories probably a dozen times.  I knew what the issue was. I had no idea how impactful and how big it would be when, when I first held it.

When the box of issues arrived at my house and when I opened that first box of issues and held in my hands, no one was here to see me, but I was, I just kept saying, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. And it was like, this is enormous. This is so big  and makes such an impact.  I thought I knew this issue was so well. And it took even me by surprise.

I think we did something special here. And  it was great.

Samir Husni: Is there anything I need to ask you that I didn’t ask you?

Colin Kearns: That’s a good question. I can’t think of anything, honestly. I just want to follow up on what I just said. It’s been really fantastic to hear feedback from readers as well.  I put my email address in my editor’s letter, hoping that people would reach out directly to me. And they have.  I’ve had one person said when they saw their first issue, they started crying because they were so happy.

People have been so pleasantly surprised and delighted to have the magazine back and to see it in this new format. That’s really been rewarding because we had a tall task on us to make good and regain our readers trust with bringing back the magazine. And I don’t think we’ve nailed it. We’ve still got work to do, but I do think we’ve at least made a good first impression we’re taking this very seriously and hopefully only going to get better from here.

Samir Husni: One of my typical personal questions at the end is if I come to visit you one evening and I knock on your door, what do I catch you doing? I mean, cooking, reading a book, watching TV or taking care of?

Colin Kearns:  I’ve got my wife and I have a 20 month old son. So if you came over you’d be warmly welcomed.

Of course  you’d probably find me either cooking a dinner for them or sharing dinner with the two of them. That’s typically what we do.

After that it’s either story time or play time with, with Leo. On the rare nights where he goes to bed at a decent hour I might treat myself to 30 minutes of an old movie before I go to bed.

Samir Husni: I’ve noticed you introduced Leo to the magazine.

Colin Kearns: Yes. It was really special. When the first issue arrived, there was not a photo of me with the editor’s letter.  There’s this beautiful sketch portrait, done by an artist named Frederick Stivers which he did it from a photo that I sent him of, of me on a trout fishing trip.

I showed it to my son, Leo and said,  Leo, do you recognize who is that? And he looked at it and he said, dad, dad. That was really cool.

It means a lot to me, whether he grows up and enjoys, fishing or hunting. That remains to be seen.  He will grow up with Field & Stream in his house, on the coffee table, or on the bookshelves. I did, I know a lot of our readers did. It’s an important presence in a lot of people’s homes. It makes me happy and warms my heart that’ll be true for him too.

Samir Husni: My last typical question is what keeps up at night these days?

Colin Kearns:  A lot of things. How do I be a better father? How do I be a better husband? How do I be a better writer and editor? And how do I be a better fly fisherman? That’s it.

Those are, those are four things that I think about. I don’t have to be the best at any of them. I don’t expect to be the best, but how can I be better at each thing each day? And that’s what I think about. That’s what keeps me up.

Samir Husni: One more question I have to ask. Are you now a country music fan?

Colin Kearns: I’m getting there slowly but surely. I’m more of a talking heads type of fan. But I will say this about Eric and Morgan, another reason they fit so perfectly within the Field & Stream brand and families.

They’re both great storytellers. They’re artists and musicians. That’s how they make their living, but they’re really good storytellers. And that goes a long way in my book. So I’m happy that they’re part of the team and have new stories to share.

Samir Husni: Thank you for your time. And all the best.