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School of Journalism and New Media
University of Mississippi

From Millionaire Businessman to Magazine Founder

Posted on: October 25th, 2012 by

Roy Reiman, who started 14 national magazines in his career, looks on as new magazine founder Jeramy Pritchett describes his publication Blindfold at the ACT Experience, Oct. 25, 2012. Photo by Deb Wenger.

Imagine making millions of dollars and just walking away from it all one day. That’s what Jeramy Pritchett, co-founder of Blindfold Magazine, says he did with no regrets.

“I was making a lot of money, but it wasn’t what I wanted,” said Pritchett, who says he got in on the ground floor of the dot.com boom and then went into mortgage lending before that industry blew up.

About a year ago, he decided to radically change his life and launched a magazine. Blindfold is what Pritchett calls “socially conscious.” Published in Boca Raton, Fla., Blindfold hit the newsstands in March and now issue No. 4 is in the works.

“Barnes and Noble bought the first issue for every store,” said Pritchett. He said the latest publication went to all Whole Foods stores and is nearly sold out.

The magazine and its focus is very much influenced by Pritchett’s years growing up. For example, one reason that Blindfold is visually rich, is that Pritchett was captivated by photos as a child.

“That became my first love: photography- a movie inside a picture,” said Pritchett.

And why the socially conscious theme? Pritchett says he went through a phase where he wanted to be Gandhi, even dressing like the man on Halloween and sometimes giving up food.

“I fasted for all of three hours and I would tell me parents I wouldn’t eat until they bought me a toy,” said Pritchett with a laugh.

Pritchett was speaking at the University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism and New Media as part of the ACT Experience. The conference is sponsored by the Magazine Innovation Center, founded by Dr. Samir Husni.

Pritchett says his magazine fills a niche for those who are interested in changing the world. The Blindfold theme of the magazine fits with that goal of raising the audience’s social consciousness.

“We always make the last picture in our magazine someone with a blindfold still on. It symbolizes that a lot of people are still blind.”

This story was crowd sourced by students in JOUR 102 Introduction to Multimedia Writing. Contributions by Nick Finch, Frances Phillips, Victoria Mekus and Drew Moak.