Letting readers influence your cover

Screenshot of an Entertainment Weekly survey page asking for input on possible cover storeisI got an email from Entertainment Weekly (I'm a subscriber) on Tuesday, asking me to share my thoughts on "a couple of possible Entertainment Weekly cover stories." I was asked to "rate your interest in each of these stories," using the simple form shown at the right.

This isn't rocket science and isn't new, but seems to be a trend, as I recently was asked to cast my vote for Sports Illustrated cover prospects.

It'll be interesting to see 1) whether any of these EW covers appears and 2) whether this trend spreads to other magazines. My sense is that it will.

It's interesting that this really hasn't taken off with newspapers. The Wisconsin State Journal appears to have stopped its experiment in letting readers pick one front-page story every day. Many media companies already generate "most popular" story feeds on their websites, and that smart editors take those and other web tools into consideration when gauging reader interest.

I also believe newspaper subscribers really do prefer skilled and experienced editors to make choices on the story mix each day. It's a premium that separates "curated" publications from the 24-7 onslaught of digital news streams.

If you know of other publications giving readers a large say in their cover story selections, lemme know.