January/February 1998
By Si Wakesberg
Si Wakesberg is New York bureau chief for Scrap.
I once worked for Waste Trade Journal, which prided itself on being the only true publication serving the needs of the sprawling U.S. scrap industry.
Publisher Charles Lipsett had established the magazine in 1905 and frequently said that it was the oldest publication of its kind still being printed weekly in the 1950s.
That’s why he brushed aside as laughable the news that someone named “Mush” Oberman was planning to compete with his journal by putting out a scrawny four-page publication named Scrap Age. Soothsayers, had they been around, might have foretold that real competition was in the making, but at that time the crystal ball was cloudy.
Mush was a former member of the scrap industry who had been injured on the job and hospitalized. While recuperating, he dreamed up his publication, an alternative to his return to work in a scrap plant, which his doctor had forbidden. He turned out to be a good salesman and his little magazine—published with no advertising at first—soon began to achieve wide distribution.
We at Waste Trade Journal studied it carefully. It seemed to us that Mush was introducing a kind of tabloid journalism into the trade press field. But, at the same time, some of us felt intuitively that he was on to something new and innovative.
Under his direction, Scrap Age became a kind of personal magazine in which the names and activities of industry members were prominently displayed—but even more important, so were their pictures. Yes, we’d used some photos of trade meetings in Waste Trade Journal, but Mush stuffed his journal with an array of personal photos of weddings, bar mitzvahs, anniversary parties—any event at which scrap executives gathered.
Mush also wrote a personal column dubbed “On the Merry-Go-Round With Mush,” which became the Samuel Pepys’ diary of his travels and meetings with scrap processors and brokers in every part of the country. The column told readers who was sick, who was getting married, whose kids were graduating from college, anything he came across.
The format bred success. In no time, the four-pager turned into a 32-pager and advertising began to pour in. People grabbed each new issue to see if their name was mentioned or if their picture had been included.
Mush became a familiar figure at scrap industry get-togethers. Friendly, conversational, the kind of person who remembered your name and company, he was soon a personality around whom a coterie of friends and well-wishers gathered. Given that the Scrap Age headquarters was in Chicago, he surrounded himself particularly with scrap executives from that city, Cleveland, and other Midwest points. He had loyal friends who helped him during his early ad-starved years and stood by him throughout his entire business career.
There were people in the scrap business who didn’t care for Charles Lipsett—who found him too arrogant or too imperious—particularly after he quarreled with his son-in-law Howard Sloane. When Howard left, a number of subscribers and advertisers switched loyalties to Scrap Age.
Along the way, Mush made a smart move in hiring Marv Oliv as his star salesman. Tall, handsome, affable, Marv helped Mush expand his business. With his help, Scrap Age became a sizable magazine no longer looked down upon by media mavens.
The magazine also got a boost with the hiring of Joe Kilgore, a reporter who had worked at Atlas Publishing—which produced Waste Trade Journal—and knew his way around.
Later, Marv and Mush found they couldn’t see eye-to-eye and parted company, with Marv joining Joe Palladino and several others who had purchased some of Lipsett’s magazines and turned them into more modern publications.
Scrap Age never went in for market reporting. Mush never got involved with markets or prices. He stayed carefully within the perimeters of personal information, a territory he had uncovered and which he recycled successfully. Some industry members thought that was a smart idea. One of them once said to me, “As far as market reports are concerned, we’re better off without them. Usually I do the opposite of what they indicate.”
At Waste Trade Journal, controversy abounded over how to meet the Scrap Age competition. Lipsett was scornful of this new publication that didn’t carry a single market report but overflowed with photographs. Our magazine, holding fast to its tradition, avoided the “personal” touch.
Some of us, however, were already hearing from our readers. “Why didn’t you take pictures of the Philadelphia Metals Association meeting?” one subscriber asked indignantly, pointing to a full page of photos in Scrap Age in which many faces—albeit not his—looked out at us accusingly.
At editorial meeting after editorial meeting, we argued the pros and cons of photography. Should we run pictures? How many? Of which events? A few editors remained adamantly opposed, but it was a losing battle. The bell tolled for our way of communicating and in the end we had to give way.
When I left Waste Trade Journal to join the National Association of Recycling Industries (NARI)—an ReMA predecessor—I got to know Mush and his wife Bobbye on a more personal basis. Bobbye, it seems to me, always had a hand in shaping Scrap Age and was a judicious adviser.
Later, the Obermans’ sons and daughter joined the publication’s ranks. By that time, the company had grown into Three Sons Publishing, which printed a number of recycling-related magazines. Mush was now M.D. Oberman, a prestigious and veteran publisher.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see how Mush and Scrap Age developed a new and more personal way of looking at the vast scrap industry in the United States and abroad.
After Mush’s death in 1987, the Oberman family decided to sell Scrap Age to the newly formed ISRI, the result of a merger between NARI and the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel. ReMA changed the magazine’s name to Scrap Processing and Recycling for its first issue in 1988. And in 1996, the association changed the publication’s name again, shortening it to the current Scrap.
There’s successful recycling for you. •