From Upstart to Mainstream

By Laurence Zuckerman

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'.

Twenty-five years ago, Bob Dylan's warning to a stick-in-the-mud establishment became a call to arms for a generation of artists and writers determined to burst through the barricades and foment change. Dozens of "alternative" publications were born in the anarchic '60s and '70s only to sink like stones by the straight-arrow '80s. The few that survived are now finding themselves on the receiving end of Dylan's message.

Next month Mother Jones, one of the country's last bastions of crusading left-wing journalism, will introduce a dramatic redesign aimed at attracting new readers. Earlier this year Ms. magazine, feminism's longtime standard- bearer, revamped itself in an attempt to broaden its appeal. Both magazines have turned in part to a sure-fire formula: celebrity journalism. The current cover of Ms. features a moody photo of Meryl Streep, while Mother Jones inaugurates its new look with seductive Susan Sarandon.

Founded in the early and mid-'70s, Ms. and Mother Jones were committed to popularizing then radical causes such as equal rights for women, environmentalism and corporate responsibility. Unlike political-opinion magazines that are content to reach a small but influential audience, Ms. and Mother Jones always aimed for a broad readership. But over time, they found themselves increasingly pigeonholed as vestiges of a bygone era. "People had a mistaken impression about what the magazine was doing," says Mother Jones editor Douglas Foster. Ms. editor Anne Summers, who took over from founder Gloria Steinem last year, was also worried about misconceptions: "Ms. readers don't all run around wearing dungarees."

In an effort to update its image, Ms. recently launched a trade advertising campaign showing the gradual transformation of a hippie type, complete with beaded headband, into a blow-dried '80s woman. The tag: "We're not the Ms. we used to be." The campaign is reminiscent of a highly successful series of ads for another '60s-era publication, Rolling Stone, juxtaposing outdated "perceptions" of the magazine next to the "reality." Perception: a psychedelic van. Reality: a spiffy red sports car.

But while it was relatively easy for Rolling Stone (circ. 1.18 million) to follow its franchise, rock 'n' roll, into the mainstream, Ms. and Mother Jones have not had as clear a path. Named after turn-of-the-century labor organizer Mary Harris Jones, Mother Jones established itself as a passionate muckraker with a 1977 expose that alleged Ford had been aware of what turned out to be a fatal defect in its Pinto. Over the years the magazine has gradually increased its cultural coverage, a trend that will continue in its new incarnation. But the new Mother Jones will also try to appeal to its older readers by introducing columns about politically correct travel and even personal finance. Whereas it once called itself "a magazine for the rest of us," the new Mother Jones is less of an upstart, offering the subtitle People, Politics, and Other Passions. Says Publisher Don Hazen: "You'll see more familiar faces on the cover."

Hazen hopes the changes will attract more advertisers and boost circulation from its current 176,000 back toward its 1980 all-time high of 238,000. Critics are already crying sellout. Michael Moore, who briefly edited the magazine two years ago before being fired in a bitter dispute, calls the redesign "People magazine with a liberal tinge." Hazen and Foster insist that the magazine has not abandoned its principles but rewrapped them in a more appealing package. "We've got to find a way to communicate political ideas in a broader context," says Hazen, "and if Susan Sarandon can do that, then we want to use her as much as we use the Ralph Naders of the world."

Ms., with a circulation of 500,000, has also been criticized for going soft. Now touting itself as the "only general-interest newsmagazine for women," it has increased its political reporting and covered such issues as child care and women and AIDS. But it has also begun to encroach on territory previously left to traditional women's magazines. Current and upcoming articles include "The Choice of Staying Gray" and "Cookbooks to Dream About." Explains Summers: "The women's movement is not as militant as it used to be. The world has changed, and we've changed too."

The question is whether loyal readers will accept such changes. "Will blending mean blanding?" asks Abe Peck, author of Uncovering the Sixties, a history of the underground press. Just because Ms. and Mother Jones readers have entered the mainstream doesn't necessarily mean they are prepared to accept similar shifts in their favorite magazines.

With reporting by Naushad S. Mehta/New York