A Halloween Disruption For A Martha Stewart Fan

An avid Martha Stewart fan was super disappointed when she purchased the Halloween issue of Martha Stewart's Living magazine this year.  She was sitting at her kitchen table and noticed something strange about a photo of a chocolate cake titled the Macabre Manse.  She thought she had seen the haunted house-styled confection before, in a previous issue of a Martha Stewart publication so she checked.  What she found was an October 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living that had the same image.

This fan had also been an editor previously and was shocked they repurposed material.  She checked other issues looking for examples of duplicated content and found many more.  So what is the protocol on this?

I thought maybe this was a new trend, as people are not reading newspapers or magazines as much anymore.  However, repurposing content is something that many magazines and newspapers have been doing a long time - including The New York Times.  However, the publication usually (and should) clearly state it is doing this.  However, in this case there as no such label.  Instead it says Ms. Stewart's food editors are "at it again, dreaming up truly original drinks, snacks and desserts that only look gruesome."  Soon after, a spokesperson from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia said that the two to four special editions they create each year only carry about 60 percent of original material and contain about 40 percent repurposed material.  Further, that only about 70 percent of this year's Halloween issue is original.

After our avid fan made many phone calls to Martha Stewart's Living magazine, Martha Stewart and two other reps sent a personal email back thanking her for her interest and apologizing for falling short on material and not communication this duplication matter.  Hopefully that doesn't hurt the special edition sales - the fan responded saying that it's still disappointing because "You're Martha Stewart you don't follow that standard, you set it."

The 2011 Halloween special, pictured, from Martha Stewart reused a cake from 2008.

The cake as pictured in the October 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living.