New Mobility to Cease Regular Print Magazine

United Spinal Association has announced that it will cease publication of New Mobility’s bimonthly print magazine and the page-turning digital edition after the November/December 2024 issue — but we want to assure you that this is not the end of New Mobility. We will continue to publish the authentic content by and for wheelchair users that has been NM’s hallmark for 35 years. What will be different is how we deliver it.

As publishing has evolved, so has New Mobility — and so have you, our readers. While print was once the only option, you now engage enthusiastically with our website, newsletters, videos and social channels. And if we look unflinchingly at the numbers of new print subscribers compared to the cost of producing and mailing print, we see that the time has come for New Mobility to focus more on these contemporary publishing platforms. To make that possible, we need to shift resources from print to digital.

We know that not everyone will welcome this change. As the team behind the longest-lived disability print magazine in the world, we have mixed emotions ourselves. As we have tried to extend the life of print, we truly appreciate your donations and notes of support. And as we plan our last couple of issues, we hope you will share with us your stories about how NM has affected you over the years. We will publish a selection of them in our final edition.

New Mobility 2.0

Even as we say goodbye to an era, we can’t help but be excited about the future and having more time to devote to modern storytelling platforms. Whatever new forms NM takes, we’ll keep telling authentic stories by and for wheelchair users that you can’t find anywhere else. We are busy working on new delivery ideas, but here’s what we know: We would like to expand our videomaking capabilities. We are discussing possible podcast formats. We want to post web content more frequently. We are considering more newsletters focused on specific topics such as travel and health. Most importantly, though, we want to hear from you. What would you like the next iteration of New Mobility to be? One way to let us know is to respond to our 2024 Reader Survey. You can also email us your ideas and questions — or comment below. Just want to rant about the end of an era? We will absolutely read and publish those letters too.

One question we anticipate is, will there be any more print issues of any kind? We can’t commit to a number, but we hope to produce one or two issues per year. Some of these will likely be “special editions” that delve deeply into a single theme, such as travel, products or health. Some will likely be “best of” editions that compile a variety of excellent articles in a format that can be distributed to new wheelchair users in rehab or at abilities expos. We promise to keep you informed as we firm up our plans — and again, please tell us what you’d like to see.