Youthworker Journal has been out of the ownership of Youth Specialties from some time now. CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) bought the magazine some years back and entered into a marketing and editorial partnership with Youth Specialties. CCM in turn was bought by Salem Communications, a conservative Christian provider of radio and online Christian portals. See One Place to get a feel for their work.
Now Salem’s decided to go it alone, without marketing or editorial input from Youth Specialties. Mark Ostreicher, presdent of Youth Specialties, tells the story at his blog, ysmarko. See Darren Wright’s take on the parting at the Digital Orthodoxy blog.
It appears as though marketing rules the day on this one. Salem have to take into account not just the perspectives of youth workers from across the spectrum of churches and theologies, but more importantly, the perspectives of organisations they’ve recruited to advertise to their core radio and magazine audience: stay-at-home women with traditional family values. I suspect that Youth Specialties has become non-kosher because of their engagement with the Emergent conversation, even though that’s now officially over.