I admire Caroline Kennedy. Her dignity and her character are striking. Sowhen she made the remark to the New York Times' David Halbfinger the other day,"Have you guys ever thought of writing for a woman's magazine or something?...You're supposed to be crack political journalists," I was surprised -- anddisappointed. Then I had a wider concern: Why, 40 years after the advent ofsecond-wave feminism, are the words "women's magazine" still so automatically aterm of mild ridicule? Maybe it's a good occasion for a little public education.
First, a couple of general points.
(1) Women's magazines not only regularly break news, but many of themrequire "enterprise journalism." Many of them mandate exclusive stories. Anystory that's been on national TV or in any national (and in some cases,big-city local) publication is automatically out of the question, even for a smallfeature. Writers and reporters have to hunt, hard and constantly, for fresh,never-told stories. That means keeping in touch with lawyers, prosecutors,defense attorneys, private eyes, doctors, whistleblowers, vice cops, shelters, NOW chapters, rape clinics, and the multidinous NGOs, small do-good orgs,and foundations whose press events the magazines's reporters are always runningout to cover.
(2) Women's magazines have created whole categories of news. Ever since Ms. (a women's magazine) coined the term "Battered Women" onan early cover, the entire domestic violence field, with its many side-issuesand offspring, has been a signature beat for these magazines. I remember first readingabout the brand-new ruling Thurman vs. Torrington CT (the case that -- inthe late year of 1982 -- made police departments liable if their members stoodby and watched while men tried to kill their wives) in McCalls magazine. Women's magazines indefatigably (but not rashly or gratuitously) cover violenceagainst women, a term that owes its salience to that publication genre. Oneexample of many recent hard-hitting and creative responses: Several yearsago, a proliferation of wife-and girlfriend killings led Glamour Editor in ChiefCindi Leive to commission a multi-part package that opened with two wholepages of mug-shot-like pictures, painstakingly culled from virtually everypolice precinct in the country -- of disparate women killed by intimate partnersin that one-year period.
Women's health is second case in point. Breast cancer's existence asthe gold-standard in medical charity and research owes a lot to theunflagging, cutting-edge coverage in women's magazines. Says Lucy Danziger, who'sbeen Editor in Chief of Self for seven and a half years. "The life-saving breastcancer coverage in Self started with our co-founding of the Pink Ribbon forawareness and activism (specifically, breast health awareness and cancerresearch fundraising) back in 1992, and then continued with 16 years ofaward-winning coverage of the disease, including risk reduction through healthylifestyle changes, the latest technologies for screening, early diagnosis, advancesin treatment and ultimately cures. Now, if caught in the first stages,breast cancer is 98 percent treatable to a cure. That's something all women'smagazines can be proud of."
Women's reproductive freedom is another. Says Wendy Naugle, Glamour'sDeputy Editor (Health): "Historically, Glamour -- and other women'smagazines -- have been champions of women's reproductive rights, not just in terms ofabortion" -- Editor in Chief Leive grilled John McCain on his stand on the subjectbefore the election -- " but also emergency contraception, contraception coverage, insurance issues and more." For example, a May 2006 Brian Alexanderpiece "The New Lies About Women's Health" was a comprehensive look at howlocal, state and federal policies (including those of the Bush administration)were affecting women's health care, including how doctors in some states areforced to lie to their patients about the fake abortion-breast cancer link." It was cited by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern for publicinterest journalism and, recalls Alexander, "also broke news about how themilitary first accepted Plan B [the "morning-after" pill] and then withdrew it --an unprecedented move." Former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldtrecalls that during her tenure "we found most insurance plans didn't covercontraception, so we secured bipartisan sponsorship of the Equity in Insuranceand Contraceptive Coverage bill in Congress and started a campaign to passsimilar legislation in states. Glamour jumped on the story even though most ofthe mainstream media ignored it for over a year. Glamour's coverage wasextremely important to increasing public awareness. Today, half of states havecontraceptive equity laws, it's part of the federal employees' health plan, andcontraceptive coverage has become more the norm than the aberration. "
As Peggy Northrop -- who's now the Editor in Chief of Readers Digestafter decades in high posts at women's magazines -- three and a half years asEIC at More, before which years spent at Redbook, Real Simple, Glamour,Mirabella and Vogue -- puts it, "Every issue that touches women has been dealt withfirst and often only in women's magazines."
Okay, so women's mags serve women's needs. But what's hard news dothey break, or feature in particularly thorough and hard-hitting ways? Here are just a few examples among many:
Essence had its own contract photographer exclusively follow Obama on the campaign trail, taking amazing pictures no one else had seen. Good Houskeeping did a powerful piece, "You Can't Live Here Unless You're White," (by K.C. Baker) on illegal housing discrimination that still exists, in 2007. Marie Claire had an exclusive interview with Debra Ryan, the wife of financier-turned-fugitive Sam Israel III, the hedge-fund manager who tried to fake his own suicide to escape a 20-year fraud sentence and an exclusive interview with the wife of a Belgian terrorist who went to jail for aiding the Madrid train bombers; she shed new light on how young people are recruited into jihadist circles in Europe. Elle's profiles by Lisa DePaulo are always news-breaking. O has featured long, revealing interviews with Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel. Glamour accomplished what the U.S. government had trouble doing: in 2005 bringingPakistani women's rights activist Mukhtar Mai (who had been raped on the orders of her village counsel) to the U.S. for the first time, and arranging for her to speak at the U.N. And its piece on "The War's Deadliest Day for Women," by Susan Dominus--about an ambush in Iraq that left three US military women dead and 11 badly injured--showed the war: from the women soldiers' point of view, in all its brutal, patriotic and painful detail. More's "Leslee Unruh's Facts of Life," by Amanda Robb, exclusively revealed the deceptions and the money trail of a foremost abstinence-only and anti-abortion activist.
Assistant journalism professor Patti Wolter, of Medill, is proud of her formeroccupation as senior features editor for news (and head of an investigative unit) at Selfmagazine. She recalls how her stories won awards and how a piece she assigned and edited helped deepenthe understanding of obesity as a national health problem. Of her sending awriter to Peru to investigate the impact of Bush's funding cuts to international health clinics that suppported abortion, Wolter rhetorically asks, "Would any other kind of publication [but a woman's magazine] would devote those resources to pursuing a story on global women's health?"
Women's magazines have foreign correspondents. Jan Goodwin has coveredconflicts and crises in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, El Salvador,Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, the Middle East and Gulf, Northern Ireland,Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Uganda (and U.S. prisons) forMarie Claire (as well as for O, Harpers Bazaar and Glamour). And regularaward-winners: National Magazine Award winner Stephen Fried, says, that, for Glamour, "I did the first-ever interview with the Justice Department's leadprosecutor on sex trafficking; the piece I did on addiction to Paxil was one of thevery first (if not the first) piece on the subject of a drug side-effect whichis now very commonly known but at the time was being disputed; and last yearI did the first major piece on the psychological and financial issues facingwidows of Iraq war soldiers." David France says, "For Ladies Home Journal,I spent a year following the a family whose son had committed suicide, theonly piece of its kind, trying through forensic journalism to understand" thedeath. "For Glamour " -- aside from getting the then-yet-to-be-elected GeorgeW. Bush to admit he didn't know who the Taliban were --" I wrote aninvestigation on mandatory minimum drug sentences, which impact women more than men.Bill Clinton gave clemencies to each of the women I profiled." He adds, "I've always found women's magazines ideal places to write `justice journalism.'"
"Justice journalism." That's a good term for the work many of us do, and I agree with David about where it usually is most welcomed and fits best. For Self, I unearthed, through confidential Pentagon transcripts leaked to me, the known-to-the-military higher health risks to women of the mandatoryAnthrax vaccine; and I learned of several hushed-up hospital deaths due to the 2001U.S. nursing shortage. For Glamour I've done the first or exclusive storieson: a landmark victory of sweatshop workers, the travails (and shocking findings) of an FBI whistleblowerAttorney General John Ashcroft was trying to silence, the 40-year-later aftermathof one of the most brutal murders of the Civil Rights era, and an abortion doctor's sexual assault on 32 of his patients. Sometimes having the cover of "women's magazine" is an advantage. Years ago, for Redbook, I sleuthed out biased judges, resulting in one being booted off the bench and officialinvestigations being launched on two others. I was looking for America's "mostsexist" judges, but a couple of my flattered prey thought I'd said "sexiestjudges," and the best way to get a source to talk, of course, is to thinkyou're calling him handsome.
In fact, saying "women's magazines" with an implicit eye-roll is, these days, like calling Brooklyn a hip residential "frontier" or using a VCR: transparently passe. As the earnest compliance with the requests for sit-downs with as many women's magazine EICs who requested them by McCain and Obama made clear, "politicians understand that they can't get elected without women," says Cindi Leive. "So they give us access they never would have two decades ago. Anyone who doesn't get that is sort of trailing the boat, anyway."
Peggy Northrop has it right, when she says: "I'm waiting for the daywhen a woman's magazine editor runs for office. Now that would be a candidacy I could get behind. A smart businesswoman, in touch with women's everyday concerns, resourceful, committed, well-informed, a communication genius, and, damn it, brave about stuff that really matters.
"I can name ten women off the top of my head who fit the bill.Let's start a movement."