Ms. had to change or die. The magazine was strapped for cash in all of its incarnations. By 1988, its founders, Gloria Steinem and Patricia Carbine, were no longer involved; the magazine was run by Australians Anne Summers and Sandra Yates. They tried to lure advertisers with a more mainstream format-movie-star covers, gardening columns-but succeeded only in frustrating many of the original readers who missed the feminism. When publisher Dale Lang bought Ms. and teen magazine Sassy from Yates and Summers two years ago, he said that he would only keep M going if it could support itself.
Only a few periodicals-Consumer Reports; Guideposts, a nondenominational magazine, and MAD-are completely subscriber supported. Despite industry skepticism, Ms. editors thought they could survive because “we knew there was a hardcore Ms. audience who would stick with this magazine,” says publisher Ruth Bower. But, she adds, if you’re going to ask readers to pay more, you have to give them what they want. Morgan scrapped the movie stars and put fiction, poetry and international news in their place. She also brought back writers such as Alice Walker and Andrea Dworkin. So far readers are pleased. Morgan and Bower say that the first issue sold off newsstands quickly; by the third issue, circulation topped the break-even point of 75,000; by this summer’s anniversary issue, says Bower, it had hit 150,000. Their claims cannot be confirmed independently. The magazine is privately held and Ms. is no longer reviewed by the Audit Bureau of Circulations; there’s no need since it doesn’t need to impress advertisers.
The success of Ms. defies not only publishing wisdom but also the frequent pronouncements that the women’s movement is over. “With amazing regularity, there’s a cover story somewhere saying, ‘Well, the women’s movement is now dead again’,” Morgan says. In particular, she sees a rise in feminist awareness among young women. Bower and Lang were surprised by the large response they got to subscription offers sent to young readers of magazines like The Utne Reader and the moribund Wigwag-much stronger, for example, than from the readers of Lear’s. And when Ms. ran a “young feminist dialogue” in a recent issue, letters from young readers arrived saying they were overjoyed to find they were “not alone.”
Not having advertisers has allowed Ms. to write about its former patrons. In the first issue without ads, Gloria Steinem’s expose-memoir “Sex, Lies & Advertising” revealed the hold advertisers have over editors. The story caused a stir in the magazine world because she named names. Revlon, she wrote, canceled scheduled advertising because Soviet women in a cover photo were not wearing makeup. And she claimed that Leonard Lauder, of Estee Lauder, told her he would never advertise in Ms. because his company was selling “a kept-woman mentality.” When Ms. tackled some hard-news topics, it ran into advertiser resistance.
Even without advertising, the new Ms. is not without problems. Morgan is best known as a feminist and author, and her lack of editorial experience sometimes shows through. The pages are heavy with type and much of the writing is dull. And because so many of its writers are old-guard feminists, the magazine suffers from a lack of new blood. “They’re going to have to bring along a new generation of writers who are using the vocabulary of this young generation,” says Suzanne Braun Levine, editor in chief of the Columbia Journalism Review and a former editor of Ms. “I know they’re trying, but I don’t think they’ve succeeded yet.”
The newfound prosperity of Ms. is tantalizing for publishers of similar magazines. Lang recently got a call from Owen Lipstein, owner of the beleaguered Psychology Today, who was considering the same tactic. But it won’t be easy for others to use the same strategy. According to Douglas Foster, editor of Mother Jones, Ms. had going for it “the history of the magazine, the deep loyalty of the readers and the fact that fresh in every reader’s mind is the knowledge that this magazine was nearly lost.” Does anyone care that much about PT.?
That’s the point: Ms. is unique. Other editors will have to continue wooing advertisers while Morgan concentrates on readers.
