The Days of Christmas, vol. 5

The Singing News.

Well, there are several places I could go with this one...

First of all, since the Singing News is the most read print magazine in Southern Gospel music, I think they need a real re-working of their "chart". Far too many people have lost faith in its accuracy in recent months and years. When the most relied on chart in the genre is 2-3 months behind, we have a problem. Not to mention songs that chart extremely high and there are people in radio-land who have never even heard them (although this has as much to say about SG radio as it does SN).

Second, this policy of only putting groups on the front who meet a rigid "dress code". It is certainly their right to do this since they are a privately owned company, but it seems a little hypocritical to me to refuse GVB on the cover but then take their money and print their adds all throughout the rest of the publication.

Finally, the SN does a good job on stories about groups and individuals. They help us to "get to know" these people in a way that we would be unable to otherwise. However, there needs to be more meat in some of their articles. They should go back a few years and read some of JD Sumners old articles. That is the kind of thing they need. I know there may not be a JD out there, but there are some interesting folks in SG who could write interesting articles.

So that brings me to my (pseudo) gift to the Singing News. In light of their recent purchase by Salem, I would like to give them a management that will implement the above suggestions and make the Singing News an even bigger success and an even more looked forward to magazine.