My Magazine Ch. 01

[This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.]

*****

Shortly after 9.00 on a drizzly Thursday morning in London, the first of the day's telephone calls announced itself. Propping the hand-piece between her left shoulder and ear, the busy editor reached for her green tea.

Glancing at the clock, she slipped into cheerful mode saying: "Good morning, Jenni Giles speaking."

It wasn't a routine call.

After the friendly preliminaries, her publishing company's chief executive cleared his throat and said sympathetically: "I may as well come straight out and say this. I'm sorry Jenni but David says we have to let you go."

Go where? Jenni was forty-two, advancing into the 'difficult to employ' age group. That degree of difficulty would jump two-fold because she was a female journalist. No rack that up further, she thought. With her high salary tag, prospective employers would distance themselves even further.

Publishers of women's magazines these days tend to recruit young media hot-shots who look beautiful even without make-up to personally set the tone of the publication. Their winning smiles beaming seductively from the graphic placed above the name of the magazine's editor.

The falling of the axe was not unexpected, just its timing. One would expect notice of termination coming near the end of the working week, not first thing on a Monday morning.

The circulation of Garden Secrets, Kitchen Successes, the nationally distributed monthly magazine she edited, had been dropping like blossom from a cherry tree. Major efforts had been made by Jenni and company executives to stop the haemorrhaging, without success.

Even she had come to the verge of accepting defeat.

Zephyr Media Ltd had engaged an independent media consultant to analyse the rise and fall of its failing publication. The well-padded report from the former tutor in journalism simply concluded what was already known within the company:

"Your magazine is being strangled, perhaps before too long terminally, by home and garden publications. Such publications rise and fall in and out of favour and some disappear forever. Fifty-nine H&G magazines were in circulation in London at the last count."

The consultant offered two suggestions: [1] Commission him to prepare a fight-back strategy – estimated cost £15,000. [2] Cease production of the magazine immediately.

Zephyr executive chairman David Brooks said to his CEO at 9.03 on Monday after scanning the consultant's report, "Begin the closure immediately, and make the edition not passing through production the final one."

The accepted procedure was to start at the top.

Ron phoned Jenni immediately.

But Jenni was not about to roll over.

"Ron, we've had twelve years in the media together and so I ask big favour," Jenni said grimly.

"Give me till three o'clock today before you take any further action. Allow me this six-hour reprieve please sweetie. Nobody will know you've delayed action and by then I shall have a business proposal to put to you."

"What kind of business proposal?"

"Ron!"

"All right, you've saved my hide a couple of times in the past, but make that two o'clock I have a meeting scheduled for 3:00. I undertake to halt termination procedures until we've had that meeting. I'm really sorry this is happening Jenni."

"I'm a survivor Ron. Bye."

This crisis left Jenni in an unaccustomed state. Usually the attractive and lively journalist was an almost 6ft bundle of brazen charm. It was her nature to be kind to cats, old ladies and anyone approaching her with a problem. But that announcement received moments ago had punctured her persona, leaving her physically and intellectually gasping, like the fallen stage heroine collapsed on the floor under a merciless white spotlight,

Jenni already had spoken profoundly and thought emphatically "Yes I am a survivor."

Those words were truer than perhaps she realised. Down, but not out. She would uplift herself with vengeance, though in the nicest sense of that word vengeance.

Some call it character, some call it guts and the so-call people of enlightenment refer to it as soul. Whatever, within the hour Jenni would reconfigure herself, fired up with a mission.

She leaned back in the chair, heart thumping. Jenni knew she had grit and liked a bit of a gamble. Well those attributes would now be tested. Given support, she was confident of resolving her dilemma. The capital to fund the project that had sprung to mind as soon as Ron indicated the axe was swinging won't be a problem. Her widower father had died only a few months earlier, leaving her as sole beneficiary of a gigantic nest-egg – secretly she was a very wealthy woman.

Still despondent, she opened her office door and asked her personal assistant Rhonda Flagstaff to cancel all appointments for that day and to deal with all phone calls.

Rhonda was about to comment but Jenni's tight mouth indicated that now was not a good time to ask why the shutters were coming down. She replied, "Right."

"Fetch me a jug of iced water please Rhonda and for lunch get me a double chicken roll and an iced tea. I'm off coffee for the rest of the day because I need a clear head. And Rhonda, later I'll ask you to send one or two people to me. Tell everyone else I'm unavailable – no exceptions."

Closing her door, Jenni swung around in her black leather chair, her gaze leaping over neighbouring office buildings to focus on the green parkland through a gap between buildings. A number of names were running through her mind. She had a plan; it had been at the back of her mind or pulled forward to be reviewed for some years. It now filled her mind.

She would establish her own magazine, and be the sole shareholder. She would ask Zephyr Media for the right to hand-pick people from her team – and to be granted that concession before redundancy notices or internal relocation notices were issued. Her manoeuvre would appeal to the bean-counters.

She would ask the company to negotiate a magazine production and distribution contract with her for two years on favourable terms, recognising her as a long-serving executive of the company.

As an incentive to cooperate, the company would be offered a forty-nine percent shareholding in her publishing company at the end of two years, the price to be based on independent valuations secured by each party.

From the images of her current staff flowing through her mind, Jenni divided them into two streams: the personnel she wanted, those not wanted.

Although the thought of launching her own magazine had long been with her, she'd lacked the incentive to make that commitment. The need to act was now rushing at her like a tsunami.

Those random thoughts over the years had always centred on a basic concept: a magazine mainly for women with editorial content aimed at women with above average reading interests.

Those targeted readers would desire to be intellectually challenged, entertained, informed and provoked.

At times when on phone calls her doodling often changed into names on her jotter pad – possible titles for her notional magazine. Before too long she'd noticed one particular name appearing with some consistency, indicating front-of-mind ranking.

Readership appeal was everything in securing a loyal and expanding following for any magazine. She could aim to base its content on one hundred percent on what women thought they like to read. It was tempting to believe that such a magazine would be a sure-fire success, provided it received the solid support of advertisers.

However such a temptation could prove fatal.

The media veteran frequently had gone through the mental acrobatics of trying to define just what should fill the pages of her notional magazine, and in what order should features appear and what weight should be given to the various sections in terms of length/pages and speculating on the cost of placing each section into print.

Winning readership through creative and detailed planning and the somewhat inspired teamwork to bring everything together was the task facing her. But how did one figure out what readers wanted? The even stiffer poser was did readers really know what they wanted?

Jenni knew there was a difference between what people would read and what they thought they would like to read.

Speaking on that specific point to trainee journalists and book clubs, Jenni used this example: "I think I would like to read J. R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, I have said that to myself for half my later life, but I have yet to read the trilogy. That delivers a message that I shall now discuss with you in depth."

She'd endeavoured to distinguish for her listeners the differences in readership targeting in in working on a mix of assumptions, survey data material, face to face interviews and the influence of instinct fine-tuned from working actively in the field.

She argued that people knew – and said - that poor selection, inferior writing and woeful display would turn readers away from an article; conversely excellent selection of material, inspirational writing and arresting display could attract readers to that article although it might not be the sort of article they would list as a personal preference.

She would explain to groups: "The magic of it all comes in delivering an invitation to the reader - the originality or strength of the display or first words of the article that announce, 'Read me, I'm interesting'.

"Such an article might begin:

Fiat's new 1100cc 'shopping basket' will cover almost 30 km on the equivalent cost of a packet of spaghetti.

She'd say pervasively, "I'll guarantee that some people with fuel-guzzling vehicles who never read small car reviews will stop in their tracks when scanning that introduction and probably will be tempted to continue reading the road test."

Jenni, with wide knowledge and depth of experience as a writer and editor, reflected on her arrival at the crossroads. A decision in her favour from the meeting early that afternoon would allow her to jump into the role to put her theories into practice. Her dream would face being transformed into reality – being publisher and editor of her own magazine.

Rhonda, immaculately sheathed in a shiny bright blue dress with a modest neckline, arrived with the iced water and departed, saying softly, "Everyone out there is working busily."

"Thanks."

Jenni pulled from her drawer the current staff list to action her earlier thoughts.

Busy people develop efficient systems, and in this staff selection process instead of ticking favourites, she crossed out persons she did not want on her new team. From those remaining names she circled some with her marker, identifying them as 'probables', leaving the remainder unmarked as 'possibles'.

In that initial action, she'd slashed a felt pen through the name of her senior writer Lisa, who'd become lazy and no longer almost exclusively produced the best articles. While the old skills were still within her, Lisa's interest in her work had declined markedly.

A black line went through the name of another writer, an average performer but quite disruptive in the office.

The hovering pen moved over the names of the three subeditors who processed material purchased from agencies, submitted stories and photographs from freelancers and the public, and of course, editorial material generated in-house.

It was a convenient time to get rid of the chief subeditor/deputy editor Elizabeth who, partly if not totally due to her excesses, had developed a worsening smoker's cough, an assortment of medical problems and appeared suspiciously close to being in the early stages of either alcoholism or drug dependency – or both. Jenni could not be sure.

Even worse, Elizabeth's work-rate had dropped over the last couple of years, as had the standard of her supervision.

Jenni then proposed to switch a third writer Brenda to the sub-editing table, where she sometimes relieved and obviously enjoyed the work.

Senior sub-editor Tina on the 'probable' list who worked with high-speed competency would be offered the chief subeditor's job. That would upset Timothy, who had real flair and occasionally had worked as acting chief subeditor, but his management skills were not brilliant and his attitudes were a worry at times.

Experienced writer Viv, who showed signs of being a natural leader, would be offered the role of chief writer and elevated to deputy editor, which would set teeth gnashing.

Rhonda would be invited to stay on as Jenni's PA and the on-call artist/cartoonist Felix Allum would be retained as would the fulltime and indeed over-worked design Mae Cheung.

Resting for a few moments, she massaged the back of her neck, looking across at her favourite painting of ghost gums growing amid rusty coloured earth of the Australian outback.

Jenni's office did not reflect her image ¬- that of an attractive 'mid-age' woman, with a fashionable hair-style, who obviously spent a small fortune on skin care and make-up. She walked with the straight back and gliding motion of a woman who regularly worked out at the gym, indeed there she was pushed along by a personal trainer.

In contrast, her office was rather untidy, with Rhonda forbidden to do little more than straighten the files, photographs and other material because Jenni knew everything she placed on her desk she'd find almost instantly.

There was only one vase of flowers – a large multi-coloured bunch renewed twice weekly ¬¬¬– and a bowl of fresh fruit sat on her metal-framed glass-topped desk.

Behind her chair was another lower glass-topped desk where she'd work at her laptop computer connected to a compact printer.

The flooring was covered in the company's standard dark blue with red-flecked carpet over which – and at her own expense – Jenni has placed a huge hand-made carpet from Persia (according to the label) which she'd purchased second-hand when responding to a newspaper For Sale advertisement.

Wall hangings often reveal something about the dominant dweller of a room, and in this instance, the observer would be left scratching his or her head.

Jenny had won many journalism awards but the only one displayed was a photograph of Jenni as a very young newspaper reporter, standing with the pupils of a school in the Waikato Province in New Zealand. She was holding a guinea pig. The caption read, "My gift from standard 4 pupils at Casper Creek School. This was my first public speaking engagement as a journalist. I've delivered many since, but I treasure the memory of this one the most."

There were illustrations of author Emily Bronte, celebrated journalist Barbara Walters, Catherine 11 (The Great), Empress of Russia, Joan of Arc and the Statue (female) of Liberty in New York harbour. The caption under a picture of Minnie Mouse in a pink frame read: 'Given to me on the day of my birth by my beloved Auntie May.'

Pride of place on the wall opposite where Jenni sat was a painting given to her by Adelaide-based artist Dan Paterson, then an art student who Jenni met and roamed around with when holidaying in South Australian as a university student on a summer break. She believes it's probably worth much more than all the artwork that Zephyr Media Ltd has on its walls.

To the left of that painting was a photograph of a young Jenni and a blonde haired man named in the caption as Snowy Vincent. They were at a table in a night club and looking distinctly pie-eyed with the occasion noted as Snowy's 24th birthday.

On the right of the Paterson painting was a small locked cabinet containing a book called The Little Blue Book of Poems. There was nothing displayed to explain why the cabinet was locked. The notice in small type under the cabinet simply stated: 'This Blue Book is short collection of poems by an educator at this school; it can be read with the permission of the Librarian.

Visitors looking at the cabinet may well think how strange.

The only wall hanging (apart from a towel and toilet paper) in Jenni's en suite was a life-size portrait of Hungarian-born Johnny Weissmuller, who later won five Olympic gold medals in swimming as an American citizen and went on to become the legendary Tarzan of the movie series.

There was nothing to indicate why that huge photograph was there, making its presence all the more interesting and inviting speculation. Could it be he was the man of Jennie's dreams from her early years at the movies? Later re-runs, of course!

Jenni looked at the clock and was surprised. In only fifty minutes after she'd been delivered a devastating career blow she'd lined up staffing of her new magazine.

Her mind was screaming 'Coffee!' and weakened, picked up the phone and asked Rhonda to make her a long black.

Guilt surged through Jenni during this brief period of relaxation. She was acutely aware that Garden Secrets, Kitchen Successes had died under her editorship. It had not been a sudden death but she and management had continued to be optimistic about the chances of reversing the declining circulation.

However new subscribers reacting to special deals and competitions failed to match the number of people not renewing subscriptions and making up for a drop in impulse purchases.

She was not to blame, having spent a considerable amount of company money on buying a greater range of more expensively produced articles from prestigious suppliers in an attempt to lift readership appeal. The main problem was the tide had turned against the publication in its aged format.

Garden Secrets, Kitchen Successes – that lousy name was chosen over Jenni's protest – was at the time only the second magazine in the country of its type, and initially enjoyed a runaway success.

Jenni had been pulled off Country Women as deputy-editor to launch the new magazine and received the credit for its high-flying debut and consistent jumps in circulation figures each month. She now had had to accept being directly connected to its demise.

'Jenni Giles's Garden & Kitchen Mag Goes Under', will be a likely heading in the business section of newspapers, she mused.

"What's this looking out the window instead of working?" inquired Rhonda, knocking and walking in with coffee.

"Ah, Rhonda – grab a coffee and come back. We need to talk."

Rhonda sat expectedly, sipping coffee.

Jenni talked enthusiastically about their working relationship, which made Rhonda think that perhaps she was being given a pay rise. Then there was a gloomy switch the magazine's struggle to survive which made Rhonda wondered if she was being conditioned to accept a pay cut.

"I must tell you, in strict confidence, that the magazine is facing the chop with an announcement about that coming probably late today. But all is not lost. I aim to start up a new magazine, with or without the support of this company, and I want you alongside me doing what you do now."

"What sort of magazine?" asked Rhonda, looking rather shaken.

"A lively chic one, aimed at women who basically but not exclusively are intelligent, articulate and moneyed who like to be challenged, informed and scandalized a little. Those are women who don't want to be treated as dolls, bimbos or unimaginative Royalists."

"But aren't other magazines already aiming at those readership interests?"

"That's a good question Rhonda, which is why you work with me. I guess all publishers say they aim to do it a little differently and there's room in the market for them to make a real impact. But we'll be different."

"Well when do we start?"

"I haven't made you an offer yet Rhonda."

"I know, but you will, and I know the salary will not be any less that what I am getting now. You are not an unfair or manipulative person."