"STM - STW" in the News

A push to spotlight readers, ditch advertising
Downtown Journal by Sarah McKenzie

"Screw The Man" on Think MTV

Our friends at Think MTV blogged about the "screwtheman - savetheworld" campaign. Read it here.

STM-STW NYC

I recently had the opportunity to visit the grand city of New York. During my stay I definitely wasn’t going to pass up the great photo-ops NYC has to offer. Especially when I have a cool sign to pose with.


Like Kyra’s experience, what started out as a serious endeavor soon turned into silliness. After many curious stares, laughs and pointing we couldn’t help but laugh too.


Hope you enjoy seeing the pictures as much as we did taking them.

- Lauren Fischer

"Save The World" Photo Challenge

Do you have a great image depicting "saving the world?" Submit it to NEED, the humanitarian magazine*.


photos | John Abernathy (1 and 2), Claudia Janke, Scott Harrison, Yan Sieler, Maciej Dakowicz and Paul Corbit Brown

Your image will be shared on the blog of our new campaign; "screw the man - save the world." Top images will be selected to be displayed on the NEED magazine homepage. And with the success of the "stm-stw" campaign, may appear in the print version of NEED.

What to send:

1. Your best single image depicting saving the world in jpeg format no bigger than 500px by 500px
2. 65 character (not 65 words) description of the image
3. Name and URL of the aid organization affiliated with your image, if any
4. Your full name
5. URL of your website

NEED is a photo-driven publication about life-changing global humanitarian efforts. This is your chance to be part of it.

Submit your images to photos@screwtheman.net

www.screwtheman.net | www.needmagazine.com

*Do not send images that are vulgar, racist, sexist, overtly political or pornographic. Inappropriate images will not be displayed.

Minneapolis-based NEED magazine says 'Screw the Man, Save the World'

Read Gina Czupka's article on the "screwtheman" campaign for the Minneapolis Budget Travel Examiner. >> read the article

Official "ScrewTheMan" News Release

Download a PDF of the official "ScrewTheMan" news release

SCREWTHEMAN, SAVETHEWORLD? What is this all about?

The best photographers in the world want to inspire people to action by taking photos where people are suffering. NEED magazine wants to tell stories about our heroes who are saving the world through humanitarian efforts. Readers crave inspiration from stories like these. So why is it difficult for a media organization to publish these stories?

Advertising dollars fueled print media in the past. Publications go to great lengths to drive up their circulation numbers in order to entice corporations to buy advertising space. This money comes with a price. Because advertisers control a large portion of publications’ revenue, they can easily dictate the content within written media. During this recession, many media organizations are discovering how unstable advertising money is. As corporations go bankrupt, so do publications that rely on these companies for advertising money. In response to this, NEED magazine is saying, “Screw the man.”

NEED magazine is a small, independent magazine which tells uplifting stories of hope about humanitarian aid. The publication was started by a couple who sold all they had to help humanitarian efforts by inspiring others. The “ScrewTheMan, SaveTheWorld” campaign is a push to drive up subscriptions so that NEED will not have to rely on advertisers for revenue.  If we reach just 25,000 subscribers, NEED can kick advertisers to the curb for the length of these subscriptions. Since all the money sustaining the publication will come directly from subscribers, NEED will not be influenced by outside corporations, and the driving force of the magazine will be the readers themselves.

With every ad removed, NEED will have more space within each issue. We want to fill these pages with readers’ stories. If a reader has volunteered building a well in Sierra Leone, we want to publish it in the magazine so that this story might influence someone else to take a similar action. In this way, every reader has the power to join the founders’ goal of inspiring others to help. ScrewTheMan, SaveTheWorld is about making readers the lifeblood of NEED magazine and expanding its impact.

What’s more, of every 5000 new subscribers gained during this campaign, NEED will randomly choose one to win a PLAY it Forward Adventures trip. PLAY it Forward Adventures combines adventure sports with volunteer relief in exciting destinations all over the world. We are excited to possibly have the opportunity to provide people with the travel experience of a lifetime all while furthering our goal of publishing a magazine that inspires everyone to do their part to save the world.

standing in traffic

Scott Schmidley prepares to jump into traffic.

The NEED crew arriving at the photoshoot.

Day four at a new job is usually too soon for an employer to ask you to stand in traffic, but apparently not at NEED. On my fourth day as an intern for NEED magazine, I went along with the staff on a photo shoot for the “Screw the Man, Save the World” campaign. We held signs in different parts of the city while photographer John Abernathy took pictures.

It was fun to see how the lunch rushers at Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis made unexpected cameos in our pictures. We held signs that read “Screw the Man, Save the World” above the mobs of busy people on escalators, rocks, busy sidewalks, skyways, in intersections and between cars. I stood in an intersection while John shot pictures from a skyway. The light was red, but still!

 

John Abernathy photographing Rachel Yuen.

John and the team at NEED came up with some great ideas to capture the campaign’s message. I was really impressed. John is an old friend of NEED magazine who has photographed for four of NEED’s past issues. After a passing motorist howled at Stephanie, our Editor in Chief, John told her, “Only when you are getting yelled at do you truly know, you’re doing something right.”

After the shoot we went out to lunch and agreed that overall the photo shoot was a success. The only letdown was that the Minneapolis segway patrol cops zoomed by too fast for us to get a shot with them.

- Scott Schmidley

Scott Schmidley's final shot.