Editor decides to commit his energies to “Failure”
By Janet Rausa Fuller, Chicago Sun-Times, July 17, 2000

Thirty-year-old writer Jason Zasky can’t think of any particular incident in his life when he completely and utterly blew it.

He’s hoping to keep that streak alive in his new gig as the editor and CEO of a magazine called . . . Failure.

The new online rag devoted to failure in all its forms debuts today at failuremag.com. Zasky, former managing editor of Billboard’s Musician magazine, sounds almost giddy about its future.

“Think about it from a marketing perspective. It’s the ultimate challenge to sell failure to people,” he said.

But with the economy on a roll and millionaires a dime a dozen these days why even try to launch a magazine with a name that is basically a bummer?

“Because failure is a universal experience that people all can identify with,” he said. “This wasn’t born out of the way the economy has been doing the last couple of years. This is an evergreen idea.”

Geared toward 20- to 40-year-old ‘smart, inquiring, independent thinkers,’ Failure will cover failure as it relates to arts and entertainment, business, sports, science, technology, religion and history.

Despite such regular features such as “The Bomb Site,” a weekly interactive poll that predicts the fate of new movies, and “Fail Mail,” a forum for correspondence, Zasky says readers will be hard-pressed to find anything tongue-in-cheek about Failure.

The first issue includes an interview with Apple Computer’s co-founder (and inevitable second banana to Steve Jobs) Steve Wozniak, who talks about the failures of the computer industry. Among the other articles are an essay on the state of the drive-in movie [theater] and a profile of 70-year-old Florida resident Moe Norman, “the greatest golfer the world has never known.”

Robert McMath, consumer goods expert and author, has signed on as Failure's marketing columnist. His first feature is on the not-so-winning Kellogg’s Breakfast Mates cereal, which combines cereal and milk in one package.

The idea for Failure came about five years ago from Zasky’s cousin Fred Stesney, an advertising copywriter.

“He just came to me one day and said, ‘I’ve got this great idea for a magazine.’. . . I immediately saw ‘Failure’ in my future,” said Zasky.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

This article originally appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on July 17, 2000
Copyright © 2000 Chicago Sun-Times