Did you have a problem with MD when they went "all natural" in the late 90s? Were you writing for them then? Can't remember if you did.
IMO what MD did then was worse than the 'burying your head in the sand' policy Flex has. They were promoting juiced athletes as natural!
MD, and same goes for any other magazine, is trying to find a market for their stuff. The 'natural' route didn't work apparently so they went back to discussing juice. Had they been able to sell that crap you can bet they would have continued with it! It ain't about "truth", it's about $.
MD's lingering identity crisis, over the last 10 years, has been well documented.
It's not so much that they went natural (I actually liked that, as I felt it gave some guys some well-needed press). It's how they went about it. When
Muscular Development morphed into
Muscluar Development-Fitness-Health (and later into
All-Natural Muscular Development), they spend FAR too much energy blasting the Weider pubs.
With Steve Blechman at the helm, MD's sole purpose in life is to be the anti-FLEX. If FLEX talks a bit more about anabolics, MD will blast it, even going so far as blaming Dorian Yates (and the judges that voted him Mr. O) as the reason for the hyper drug use and subsequent illnesses and deaths in pro bodybuilding.
When FLEX de-emphasizes anabolics and gets back to basics, MD (now in "hardcore" mode) can't stop talking about steroids. Now, Blechman and crew are "keeping it real", while criticizing FLEX the whole time.
I find it hilarious and ridiculous at the same time, especially when Blechman swore at one time that no steroid-using bodybuilder would ever grace the pages of MD again. Then MD almost completely abandoned bodybuilding coverage (natural and "not-so natural"), in favor of mainstream sports coverage, with football and tennis playes consistenly making the covers.
When MD went "hardcore" again, the explanation I heard was that Steve Blechman blamed his family members, who owned Twinlab at that time, for the "all-natural" spiel. Now that he solely owns the magazine and has no stake in Twinlab, he was going to go "hardcore" again.
What's even more ridiculous is, while FLEX was putting BODYBUILDERS on its covers, MD was in a fierce battle with MuscleMag International, trying to see who could plaster the most silicon-stuffed hoochies on its covers and between its pages.
When Jay Cutler won his first Arnold Classic, did he make the cover of MD? Well....technically the answer is "Yes". But, it was a small black-and-white pic of him in the corner. Meanwhile, MD's latest pin-up girl takes up most of the front, bold and in color.