There's no shortage of editorial ideas

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 1985 by Peter Jacobi

Read, listen, look

Lerman was listening.

Where do ideas come from? From reading and listening and looking at pictures. And the Roper Reports remind me that they come from daydreams, too. Looking at the report, I learn that 55 percent of the men and 58 percent of the women daydream about traveling abroad; that 34 percent of the men and 40 percent of the women daydream about the future; that 25 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women daydream about living in the past; that 12 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women daydream about having a romance with a movie star. The list also includes being rich, being famous, being smarter, being handsome or beautiful, being admired, being a famous athlete, being a great artist or writer, living elsewhere, living a completely different life, and so forth.

What an idea prompter!

Knowing how to hook on

The controversial writer Henry Miller once asked: "Who is original? Everything that we are doing, everything that we think, exists already, and we are only intermediaries, that's all, who make use of what is in the air."

The editor makes the best possible use "of what is in the air." And if he's artist enough, then, as Miller also says, he has antennae and "knows how to hook up to the currents which are in the atmosphere, in the cosmos; he merely has the facility for hooking on."

Ideas come from everywhere and anyone. News that a young lady has been crowned National Pork Queen at the National Pork Congress suggests a story about other such reigning royalty, how many there are, who they are, why they are.

An ad touting divorces for "99 tax . . . Final Decree in 1 To 8 Weeks . . . Thousands of Divorces Granted . . . Master Charge and Visa . . . 10 Convenient Offices" leads to a story about such legal mills, or to one about how much easier it is today to get a divorce, or to a story for a local magazine about finding inexpensive services such as getting your teeth cleaned and checked at a dental clinic, getting your television set fixed at a school fr TV technicians, getting your plumbing taken care of through an apprentice program.

Snatching ideas from the air

The editor learns to be receptive to ideas, snatching them from the air, from the ether, from what people say at a cocktail party and how they behave at the check-out counter of the supermarket. People at the cocktail party may be talking a completely different political line than they used to, prompting a story about views in transition. People at that check-out counter may be grousing about prices in such numbers or with so much ill humor that their behavior prompts exploration.

Ideas can come from the news. Item: "Tokyo--Police Saturday arrested an American conservationist accused of slashing Japanese fishermen's nets to free hundreds of dolphins and prevent their slaughter, the government prosecutor in Nagasaki reported."

The story goes on to tell how the man was arrested and on what charges. It mentions the concern of Japanese fishermen who claim that the dolphins have eaten too heavily into their supply of fish, which they say is vital for their livelihood.