A Ms.Erable Relaunch

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 1, 2002 by Julia M. Klein

Byline: Julia M. Klein

The latest incarnation of Ms. magazine, under the aegis of the Arlington, Virginia-based Feminist Majority Foundation, is off to a rocky start. A planned September launch was bumped until December, and a second issue isn't expected until March, after which the magazine hopes to publish bimonthly. Eleanor Smeal, president of the foundation, says she underestimated the time and money needed to create a magazine that would meet the standards of the 30-year-old feminist title.

While her group, which advocates women's causes, "knows the issues cold," says Smeal, "we've got a lot to learn and are very willing to say that. We've never been publishers of a magazine before." She says, "We'd like it to make news. This is not as easy as I thought. Investigative work takes a long lead time and a lot of money. That's the part I don't like."

In the shakeout, Tracy Wood, appointed editor-in-chief with much fanfare in summer 2002, has accepted a diminished editorial role. "I'm going to focus from here on out on the investigations," says Wood, a former reporter and editor for The Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register.

Smeal says editing the revived magazine involves "a lot of group decisions" by a corps of New York-based editors, many associated with Ms. since the 1970s. "I'm very intent on keeping Gloria [Steinem] involved," Smeal says. "Nobody knows the history and spirit of the magazine like she does."

Steinem, one of the title's founders, says a search already was underway for a new editor-in-chief. "Tracy didn't have a working knowledge of the women's movement, national or international," Steinem explains. Ms. veteran Mary Thom is supervising the December's women of the year issue, according to Steinem.

The new Ms., unlike its ad-free immediate predecessor, is accepting "mission-related" advertising, primarily from nonprofits. Smeal says luring advertisers to the 110,000-circulation mag (she's hoping for an eventual 300,000) has been "the easiest thing" to accomplish in an otherwise taxing transition.

After the foundation assumed ownership on December 31, 2001, Ms. relocated twice, first from New York to Los Angeles and then in June 2002 to a new home in Beverly Hills. Attracting editors to the West Coast is also a problem, according to Steinem.