The devil may wear Prada, but smart editors are primping with plum editorial writes Erica Bartle. Artwork by Karl Hilzinger 

Thanks to popular culture, media interest and the proliferation of online critics, the practices of women’s magazines are almost as transparent as the sheer blouses they’re pushing for spring/summer. Painted as little more than sycophantic go-betweens for big-brand advertisers and cashed-up consumers (the lucrative ABs), with a penchant for overzealous use of Photoshop, overpriced fashion, size-0 models and contradictory campaigns (espousing the ‘eco’ line while pulping trees for paper), magazines and their editors are favourites for target practice.

But despite the perception that magazine editors are misogynist in Prada pumps, most don’t sit around plotting doom and gloom in the manner of The Grinch; nor do they teeter around on four-inch heels demanding skinny lattes from the work-experience girls (well, not often). They’re too busy chasing copy, securing talent for laborious shoots, planning ad pitches, approving pages and thinking up creative ways to improve circulation figures to keep the suits happy. Their aim is to create a product that attracts, not repels, readers.

“My name is Sydney and I’m a magaholic,” reads a comment in response to a post on mamamia.com.au, the blog of magazine maven and former Cosmopolitan editor Mia Freedman. “And, tragically, I have passed on my addiction to my 17-year-old daughter. I’ve purchased every Cleo, Cosmo, In Style, marie claire, Madison, Elle, New Woman (RIP), Shop Til You Drop, and some I can’t remember the names of, for the past 20 years, and my girl has added several to the monthly cycle, which means I spend around $130 per month on magazines. OUCH, but totally necessary!”

If the mention of Grazia makes your eyes glaze over (just what the world needs – another celebrity-infested weekly magazine) and you scoff at the prospect of another women’s monthly entering the market (Glamour, via News Magazines in 2009), Sydney’s glossy-addiction admission may verge on the grotesque. Like Homer Simpson at an all-you-can-eat doughnut buffet, there are barely enough glossies to satiate the magaholic’s appetite. In a consumer culture where materialism, career success and self-improvement reign supreme, the glossy is to many women and girls what the Bible is to Christians and the Koran to Muslims – a place to go for guidance and values-based validation (yes, of course you need new shoes).

“I always thought if a fashion magazine had done its job, I’d go out on my lunch hour and buy a new lipstick or pair of shoes or something that’s green, because that’s what they’ve said the colour of the moment is,” says Freedman. “[Magazines are] very powerful brands, and people want to join those clubs. There’s always the promise that next month the magazine has the answer to make you like the people in their pages.”

In America, huge subscriber bases help to buoy profits, but Australian magazines have always relied on advertiser support. But now, thanks to an increasingly competitive market, this is affecting editorial. A few months ago, US Harper’s Bazaar came under attack from The New York Times for “selling out to Estée Lauder” by devoting 40 pages of ‘editorial’ in its July 2008 issue to the four faces of the beauty company’s new fragrance, Sensuous. Although not as extreme (only in America!), the October 2008 edition of Australian Harper’s Bazaar contained an editorial page titled ‘Sensuous Versus Sexy’ featuring the scent’s spokesmodels.

“My editor friends say it’s never been more competitive in terms of securing ad dollars, and that’s a big, boring, tedious part of an editor’s life,” says Freedman. “If only it were just sitting around thinking of editorial ideas. It’s going to launches and lunches and coming up with advertorial ideas for clients so you can book pages to make budget. Because if circulation goes down, and less revenue is generated from the cover price, advertising pages become more and more important.”

Of the seven magazine editors I spoke to for this piece, few felt overtly pressured by advertisers (it helps to have a tough-talking, gatekeeping ad manager on you  side), although it was acknowledged that a healthy respect for advertisers is non-negotiable (you fail to attend a major advertiser event at your peril) and that promising ‘added value’ editorial content is an accepted tactic for winning new business. How this plays out on editorial pages is usually left to the discretion of each editor.

Who magazine editor Nicky Briger says: “Editorial integrity is part of our licensing agreement with People magazine, so it’s relatively church and state compared to some of the monthlies, and the advertisers really respect that. That said, if there is product that I think is of value to the reader, naturally I’m going to put it in the magazine. But if I don’t think it’s right or relevant for our reader, I won’t do it.”

The idea that magazines are unique in their ability to create communities of like-minded people is being challenged by online social networking sites such as Facebook, image-sharing sites like Pikkee.com and blogs. Although most magazine editors would challenge the credibility of anything on the net, the immediacy of online content has meant glossy editors have to redefine their offerings, as everything new – formerly the domain of the mag – is now old in seconds. In response, several titles have been redesigned, including marie claire and Girlfriend at Pacific and Cleo and Harper’s Bazaar at ACP, while Cosmopolitan has increased its regular book size by 100 pages in order to offer readers more value for money. Although focus groups are still run, the magazine’s own website is the new testing ground for idea fertility.

“We can put a story online and have hundreds of girls posting messages about the story, which allows us to see how they’re reacting,” says Sarah Cornish, editor of Girlfriend magazine. “It allows us to have a more intimate relationship with the reader, as you can really get in depth with a feature or a campaign.”

The voice that magazines use to speak to readers must also reflect current trends, lest they be seen as out of touch. In the teen market, this means being au fait with the word on the street and tuning into the pop culture zeitgeist constantly (checking the ARIA charts is a must, according to Cornish, as new song lyrics can have an instant effect on language), while fashion magazines like Vogue distinguish themselves with an authoritative, all-knowing voice and the content in women’s magazines reflects trends in feminine discourse.

“One of my initiatives was to tone down the angst,” says former Cosmopolitan editor Sarah Wilson. “This generation of women like to be given solutions, not wallow in the problem. They’re very different to Generation X. I also committed to shifting the way we presented advice. In the past it was very didactic. Again, this generation doesn’t like to be told what to do, they like to be shown how by inspiring women.”

The ephemeral nature of magazines, despite their relatively long shelf life and visual appeal, makes them an exciting but expendable media proposition. As new glossies appear on the market, vying for circulation and ad dollars, others are mercilessly pulped (in the past year, for example, ACP’s New Woman and POL Publishing’s Vive have closed, there are rumours that NW is in dire straits, Grazia is failing to meet expectations and there are almost across-theboard circulation falls.)

The challenge for editors now, particularly of the weekly and monthly mainstream titles, is to maintain a relationship with increasingly distracted and disenchanted readers by giving them a good reason to hand over their hardearned discretionary dollars. And that means innovative, credible editorial, captivating images and layouts, expert commentary, insightful writing and reader-led initiatives.

“Our readers are quite passionate but they’re also very hard on us,” says Briger. “Because we have our editorial promise in the front of the magazine – that we research our stories, check our facts and never make it up – they’re always there to catch us out. It keeps us on our toes. We’re guided by the news but we discuss constantly whether the news is relevant to our reader in morning production meetings. We call it the ‘care factor’. We’re constantly querying whether certain celebrities rate with readers – like, is Britney of interest to a 33- or 34-year-old? Do they care?”

Magazines will continue to inhabit the media sphere and the lives and coffee tables of loyal readers (and their daughters) for as long as we’re prepared to buy into the promises offered on their covers (I’ll give you 50 bucks if you can find me a woman who hasn’t felt disappointed – or plain disgusted – with a magazine, only to buy it again a month later). Once read, some will be lovingly stored on bookcases or filed away for reference, while others will be resold in second-hand bookstores or on eBay, or wind up in the doctor’s surgery. Sadly, disposable commodities as they are, most magazines will meet their fate in the recycling bin – in which case, at least they’ll be giving something of substance back to the world.

Erica Bartle is a freelance writer, editor of girlwithasatchel.blogspot.com, former deputy editor for Girlfriend magazine and the nation’s number-one consumer of magazines
Karl Hilzinger is a Walkley-winning artist with The Australian Financial Review