No, but they used to publish interviews with politicians and some other important people. Iirc, an interview that Jimmy Carter gave to Playboy talking about cutting aid to the military Juntas in South America (mostly because Brazil and Argentina were developing Nuclear Weapons with West Germany's help) which caused panic and accelerated their collapse.
Yeah. "I just read it for the articles", was as much a real thing as a joke. Playboy hired many serious writers and journalists to pen articles for them over the years. In terms of page count the nudes were a relatively small part of the magazine. Certainly the focus, but if you just wanted to read it for the articles there were often articles worth reading.
To piggyback on what @captcha@hexbear.net said, most significant sci-fi authors of the 60's and 70's found their mainstream audiences through Playboy (though obviously in retrospect most of what they wrote was fairly reactionary trash, but better reactionary trash than the majority of fiction that was written then), even people like Isaac Asimov wrote fiction for Playboy at one point. Otherwise they were never really known for their "journalism".
Now I'm curious if playboy has done any journalism of significance. Have they?
No, but they used to publish interviews with politicians and some other important people. Iirc, an interview that Jimmy Carter gave to Playboy talking about cutting aid to the military Juntas in South America (mostly because Brazil and Argentina were developing Nuclear Weapons with West Germany's help) which caused panic and accelerated their collapse.
I believe Hunter S Thompson used to write for them.
Yeah. "I just read it for the articles", was as much a real thing as a joke. Playboy hired many serious writers and journalists to pen articles for them over the years. In terms of page count the nudes were a relatively small part of the magazine. Certainly the focus, but if you just wanted to read it for the articles there were often articles worth reading.
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From what I saw the articles weren't journalism though. It was way more focused on artists and stories than journalism.
Totes fair.
To piggyback on what @captcha@hexbear.net said, most significant sci-fi authors of the 60's and 70's found their mainstream audiences through Playboy (though obviously in retrospect most of what they wrote was fairly reactionary trash, but better reactionary trash than the majority of fiction that was written then), even people like Isaac Asimov wrote fiction for Playboy at one point. Otherwise they were never really known for their "journalism".