`Cosmopolitan''s Pre-1992 History

(The following article first appeared in the 9/9/92 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly newspaper, Downtown.)

The Hearst Corporation’s Cosmopolitan editor for most of the 30 years prior to 1992 was Jaws and Star Wars movie producer David Brown’s wife—Helen Gurley-Brown. After Mr. Brown came across some copies of old letters his wife had written to a former boyfriend, he “encouraged her to attempt a book on a subject she was well-acquainted with: the life of a single woman,” according to Contemporary Authors. Ms. Gurley-Brown—whose father was an Arkansas state legislator—then wrote the Sex And The Single Girl and Sex In The Office books of the early 1960s.

After making a bundle from her Sex And The Single Girl, Gurley-Brown “and her husband worked out a format in the Summer of 1964 for a magazine to be called Femme," according to Current Biography 1969. The publisher of Gurley-Brown’s books—a man named Bernard Geis—arranged a meeting with another man—then-Hearst Corporation President Richard Deems—and interested the Hearst Corporation president in Gurley-Brown’s 20-page dummy for Femme magazine. Deems then appointed Gurley-Brown as the new Cosmopolitan editor in March 1965.

After William Randolph Hearst I purchased Cosmopolitan for $400,000 in 1905, it had continued to be a muckraking magazine for a few years prior to World War I. But, following World War I, although its circulation was around one million, it was no longer such a magazine. Its editor between 1918 and 1931 was a man named Ray Long of the Algonquin Round Table literary set that included writers like Dorothy Parker. Four years after the new head of Hearst’s magazine division, Richard Berlin, had Long replaced as Cosmopolitan’s editor in 1931, Long committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a rifle. As Cosmopolitan editor, Long had been paid $185,000 per year [in 1930s money] in 1931.

Under Berlin’s management during the Great Depression, Cosmopolitan and most of the other Hearst magazines remained profitable ventures, while the newspapers of Hearst’s media empire were losing so much money that the whole company was in danger of going bankrupt. But in 1939 Berlin was able to secure an $8 million loan from the president of Bank of Italy, A.P. Giannini, which enabled the company to survive until the increased World War II demand for newspaper ad space by U.S. business restored the profitability of Hearst’s newspaper chain.

By the early 1960s, however, Cosmopolitan’s circulation had dropped to below 800,000 and its income from ad sales had dropped by 20 percent. So the men who managed the Hearst Corporation’s magazine division were willing to authorize Gurley-Brown to change the format of Cosmopolitan in accordance with her Femme magazine proposal, in an attempt to increase the magazine’s marketability among 18-to-34-year-old women office workers.

The decision of Hearst’s male managers to let Gurley-Brown alter one of their magazines proved to be a quite profitable decision. After Gurley-Brown and her husband put together her first Cosmopolitan issue in July 1965, Cosmopolitan’s newsstands sales grew between 1965 and 1969 by 300,000—despite the cost of a copy of the magazine also increasing from 35 to 60 cents a copy [in 1960s money]. Since 98 percent of Cosmopolitan’s distribution in the 1960s came from newsstand sales—in which money is made on every copy sold—and not from being mailed to subscribers—the combined increase in both mass circulation and newsstand cost-per-copy proved to be exceptionally lucrative. By the 1970s, Cosmopolitan’s readers and its advertisers were providing about $30 million [in 1970s money] in profits for the Hearst Corporation each year; and its monthly ad space was selling at $15,000 per page. In the early 1990s, copies of Cosmopolitan were purchased by about three million readers each month. [But by 2007, newsstand sales of Cosmopolitan had apparently decreased to 2 million copies each month].

(Downtown 9/9/92)

Next: Feminists and Cosmopolitan Historically

`Cosmopolitan''s Historic Hearst Connection

(The following article first appeared in the 9/9/92 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly newspaper, Downtown.)

“Steadily and quietly—indeed, with some of the palace secrecy of the old days—the managers of the Hearst Corporation have put together a media empire that dwarfs the earlier one…In 1986 it had revenues estimated at $3 billion (Hearst doesn’t publish financial statements)."

New York magazine on April 13, 1987

“We’re the largest publishers of monthly magazines in the nation with a total circulation of more than 21 million among 14 publications. These include Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar…,Town & Country, Esquire, House Beautiful, Sports Afield…"

William Randolph Hearst Jr. in his 1991 book, The Hearsts: Father and Son

[2008 Update: “Hearst Corporation (http://www.hearst.com/) is one of the nation’s largest diversified media companies. Its major interests include ownership of 15 daily and 31 weekly newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle and Albany Times Union; as well as interests in an additional 44 daily and 38 non-daily newspapers owned by MediaNews Group, which include the Denver Post and Salt Lake Tribune; nearly 200 magazines around the world, including Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine; 29 television stations through Hearst-Argyle Television (NYSE:HTV) which reach a combined 18% of U.S. viewers; ownership in leading cable networks, including Lifetime, A&E, History and ESPN; as well as business publishing, including a minority joint venture interest in Fitch Ratings; Internet businesses, television production, newspaper features distribution and real estate.”—a June 18, 2008 Hearst Corporation press release]

“About 15 Hearsts either work at the company or serve as its directors.”

The New York Times on April 26, 1987

“We must first understand who the Hearsts are, who they serve and represent. Randolph A. Hearst is the corporate chairman of the fascist media empire of the ultra-right Hearst Corporation, which is one of the largest propaganda institutions of this oppressive military dictatorship of the militarily armed corporate state that we now live under in this nation.”

Symbionese Liberation Army [SLA] Leader “Cinque” DeFreeze in 1974

“For two generations, the Hearst newspapers themselves have wielded their power and profits by exploiting the most lurid aspects of war, irrational violence, and racist and sexist ideas. They have a lot of reckoning to account for.”

The Weather Underground on February 20, 1974

Although Cosmopolitan magazine has not been too intellectually cosmopolitan, historically, when it comes to printing many feature articles about the Hearst Dynasty’s media conglomerate, Hearst corporate interests owned Cosmopolitan for most of the 20th century. Yet despite its ownership of Cosmopolitan and many other U.S. monthly magazines, the Hearst family has not been popular with many cosmopolitan people in the United States. One reason why the Berkeley urban guerrillas who “arrested” Patty Hearst on February 4, 1974—the Symbionese Liberation Army [SLA]—quickly became folk-heroes, historically, in certain cultural underground circles, is that people in the United States have long felt that it’s not democratic for “Citizen Kane” types to monopolize control of so many Big Media outlets.

(Downtown 9/9/92)

Next: Cosmopolitan’s Pre-1992 History

Remembering The `Eisenhowergate Scandal'

Republican Party presidential candidates used to generally get preferential mass media coverage in the 20th century (before wealthy U.S. corporation executives began to also bankroll Democratic Party presidential candidates more heavily) since most of the people who own the Big Media conglomerates used to just be Republican Party supporters. Yet corruption and scandal plagued most Republican administrations during the last half of the 20th Century. During the 1950s, for example, there was an “Eisenhowergate Scandal” which the then-Republican Party-biased mass media chose to ignore. As Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson wrote in their 1968 book The Case Against Congress:

“By all odds the most astonishing conflict-of-interest case to be ignored by the press in recent years involved President Eisenhower. The conflict involved gifts to his farm in Gettysburg and the way the upkeep of the farm was handled.

“…The upkeep of the Eisenhower farm was paid for by three oilmen…During his 8 years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower did more for the nation’s private oil and gas interests than any other President. He encouraged and signed legislation overriding a Supreme Court decision giving offshore oil to the Federal Government…

“On January 19, 1961, one day before he left the White House, Eisenhower signed a procedural instruction on the importation of residual oil…One of the major beneficiaries of this last-minute executive order happened to be Cities Service…The chief executive of Cities Service was W. Alton Jones, one of the three faithful contributors to the upkeep of the Eisenhower farm.

“Three months later [apparently it was actually nearly thirteen months later, on March 1, 1962], Jones was flying to Palm Springs [and nearby Palm Desert] to visit the retired President of the United States when his plane crashed and Jones was killed. In his briefcase was found $61,000 in cash and traveler’s checks [in 1960s money]. No explanation was ever offered—in fact none was ever asked for by the complacent American press—as to why the head of one of the leading oil companies of America was flying to see the ex-President of the United States with $61,000 in his briefcase.”

(Downtown 8/26/92)

Next: Cosmopolitan’s Historic Hearst Connection

Sexism In Broadcasting Ownership Historically

Although many U.S. women still watch Establishment television and still listen to Establishment radio, very few U.S. women have owned many U.S. Establishment broadcasting stations, historically. According to a late 1980s American Women in Radio and Television [AWRT] analysis of women’s ownership of U.S. broadcast station groups:

“…Women held equity owner position of more than 50 percent in only 4.3 percent of broadcast stations groups (defined as an organization with more than one station), an increase of less than 1 percent since 1978. Additionally, AWRT’s studies showed that women served as president, vice-president or general manager of only 8.4 percent of all radio stations and 6.1 percent of all television stations.”

In other words, as late 1990 U.S. corporate men still monopolized control of about 94 percent of all U.S. Establishment televisions stations—even if they did let a few U.S. women read their evening news more frequently by that time.

(Downtown 8/26/92)

Next: Remembering The “Eisenhowergate Scandal”

Obama Voted To Confirm Rice As U.S. Secretary of State

Barack Obama, the Big Media-supported Democratic Party presidential candidate in 2008, claims to be opposed to the endless U.S. war in Iraq and opposed to giving Big Oil corporations like Chevron a special influence over U.S. government foreign policy-making decisions. Yet as a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 19, 2005, Obama voted to confirm the former Chevron board member who was one of the U.S. government officials responsible for launching the endless U.S. war in Iraq, Condoleezza Rice, as U.S. Secretary of State.

On the day before he voted to confirm former Chevron board member Rice’s appointment as U.S. Secretary of State, Obama said the following:

“Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, Dr. Rice…

“Dr. Rice, it’s wonderful to see you here, and I’ve been very impressed, obviously with your mastery of the issues…And I think everybody, rightly, is extraordinarily impressed with your credentials and your expertise in this field…

"...I think it's important to note that...there was strong agreement between President Bush and Senator Kerry that our number-one priority, that our single greatest challenge, is keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists...

“Dr. Rice, I appreciate your stamina…

“I think that you have done a commendable job in helping the United States rethink its international aid and development programs…”

And on January 19, 2005, Obama also stated:

“The first question I guess I have is more of a request, Dr. Rice, and that is, assuming your successful confirmation here today that we schedule some mechanism for your Department to follow up on the question that had been raised yesterday…

“…You know, all of us, I think, are rooting for your success. And I recognize—not just yours, personally, but this administration’s success. I think the notion that we have a very real and present danger in the nihilistic ideologies of radical Islam, I think most Americans share.

“…I have to dispute, a little bit, your notion that, sort of, we’re always making progress. Indonesia, for example—I actually lived in Indonesia for five years—perceptions of America and the West were much better then than they are currently subsequent to 9/11…

“…I don’t think there’s anybody on this committee who would not prefer to see this administration succeed…

“I wish you the best of luck…”

U.S. Secretary of State Rice, also a former member of the Carnegie Corporation of New York board of trustees, was not the first person to be confirmed as Secretary of State by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a business connection to Chevron. A member of the Chevron board of directors at the time when George W. Bush’s father ordered the U.S. war machine to attack Iraq in 1991, George Shultz, was confirmed as U.S. Secretary of State in 1982 during the Reagan Administration.

As U.S. Secretary of State, former Chevron Director Shultz was the main force behind sending U.S. troops to Lebanon in 1982, according to Business Week’s January 16, 1989 issue. Former Chevron Director Shultz was also responsible for persuading former U.S. President Reagan to bomb Libya in April 1986, according to the 1988 edition of Current Biography.

Next: Sexism In Broadcasting Ownership Historically

`A Millionaire'

Oh, pig Bush a millionaire
And Bobby Dylan a millionaire
And Rockefeller a millionaire
And Bruce Springsteen a millionaire.

And Mr. Mellon a millionaire
And Warren Beatty a millionaire
And Tom Fonda a millionaire
And Mick Jagger a millionaire.

You’re such a phoney, just blowin’ out wind
Makin’ like Woody to win your million
You made me cry when I was a kid
But now I’m feelin’ you’re just a rich pig.

Don’t think we fall for that working-class shit
Give us your money, and then we might talk
We’re sick and tired of your ego-trip
Of making millions while raising your fist.

Now it seems to me it is unfair
That some men are millionaires
They steal their money by various means
Yet sing us songs to show their pity.

I’m just a poor man without any bread
I feel all people should make the same wage
To rip off culture from people oppressed
Is just as bad as burning their huts.

Inspired by the anti-corporate activism of A.J. Weberman,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRpz8g30_QY&feature=related

the Yippies and the Lower East Side’s Rock Liberation Front during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the original lyrics of the A Millionaire protest folk song were written in a slum apartment in the Bronx in 1971. As the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s passed by some of the specific lyrics were changed a little. But A Millionaire still represents an historical attempt to protest against the ripping off-for personal economic profit of the Movement’s revolutionary counter-culture by the hip capitalist global corporate music industry and their stable of super-rich rock music aristocrats.

To listen to some other protest folk songs, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” site at the following link:
http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

Next: Obama Voted To Confirm Rice As U.S. Secretary of State

The Anti-War Movements, Now and Then: A 1991 Interview With U.S. Political Prisoner David Gilbert--Part 4

What follows is part 4 of a 1991 interview with jailed former Weather Underground activist David Gilbert. http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/davidgilbert/ See parts 1-3 below.

(The following interview originally appeared in the June/July 1991 issue of New York City’s Lower East Side alternative newspaper The Shadow http://shadowpress.org/ )

Q: What about the argument that Hussein was another Hitler?

David Gilbert [DG]: I guess you should phrase that as “Hitler of the year,” since the U.S. propaganda machine has churned out quite a few “Hitlers”—Khomeini, Qadaffi, Arafat, Noriega—lately. One crucial element of defining Hitler objectively in history is that he was the leader of a major imperial power out to dominate the world. In that light, we need to worry a lot more about George Bush [Sr.] [I] than Saddam Hussein—and the same is true if we look at racial impact and scope of deaths caused by their military and economic policies.

Hussein, even after trying to claim the very honorable mantle of Arab nationalism, is [was] no sweetheart when it comes to human rights and international law, but he certainly doesn’t stand out as worse than scores of dictators that the U.S. has installed in various countries around the world. The way I look at it, Hussein is [was] a small-time local bandit. Bush [Sr.] [I] is a big-time global bandit.

Q: What do you think was the Bush [I] administration’s main motive for the war?

DG: One thing for sure: it sure as hell wasn’t about upholding international law and the principle of non-intervention. I mean, the U.S. government under Reagan and Bush [I], alone, invaded both Grenada and Panama; walked out of the World Court when it ruled that U.S. aggression against Nicaragua to be illegal; intervened militarily in Lebanon, Libya, the Philippines, and El Salvador; has been the main supporter of Israel’s illegal occupations of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights and its invasion of Lebanon; for a long time circumvented UN sanctions on South Africa; and has supported Indonesia’s brutal invasion of East Timor—to name just some of the examples. The idea that Bush [I] was acting to uphold international law is a joke—a sick and bloody joke. Calling in the U.S. to deal with Hussein’s transgressions is [was] like calling in the Mafia to clear out a local shoplifter.

In analyzing the real causes, I’ve been a little disappointed with the three positions I’ve seen most frequently in the left press: (1) it was a war for oil, (2) it was a war to maintain the high level of military spending crucial for the domestic economy, and (3) it was a way for the U.S., a declining economic power, to maintain its importance relative to Europe and Japan.

Each of these positions deals with elements of reality, but I don’t think that any of them gets to the heart of the matter. Sometimes analysts who have correctly absorbed the importance of economic factors (or, better put, class interests) too often simplify every situation to something that can be calculated on a cash register. The way I see it, broad economic interests are usually behind the formulation of a political strategy that has a scope and coherence that goes beyond the cash flow of a particular situation.

Oil is certainly central to why the Middle East has been seen as vital to Western interests, but Western oil interests were well provided for and would have been rescued by the terms of several diplomatic initiatives—especially the Soviet/Iraq proposal—that Bush [I] brushed aside. Military spending is important for the economy, but the military has always been able to come up with creative fictions for this purpose, and for many reasons such spending is problematical as a solution to the current set of economic problems. The focus on the economic competition with Europe and Japan misses just how much these three poles have had a common interest in keeping the entire Third World open for joint exploitation.

Bush [I] was determined to fight a war. He frantically discredited and brushed aside credible diplomatic initiatives, terrified that peace might actually “break out.” Bush [I] was hell-bent to fight a war because fighting a successful major war was the capstone to what has been the ruling class’s central strategy for the past 15 years: to move the U.S. public and world opinion past the “post-Vietnam syndrome.”

To understand the ruling class’s obsession, you have to know something about the world economy and recognize just how fundamentally the wealth and power concentrated in the West is predicated on the thorough and abject exploitation of the Third World. Moving past the Vietnam syndrome was so crucial to them because you just can’t maintain a vast economic empire—especially imposing the living conditions that prevail in the Third World—if you are not capable of using decisive force and terror against any “upstarts.”

They prepared the way step-by-step, first with the invasion of tiny Grenada in 1983 and then little Panama in 1989. Hussein’s move into Kuwait gave them their opportunity to finally have well-orchestrated popular support for a major war that they could count on winning.

Q: How do you see the state of the anti-war movement today [in 1991], and the tasks ahead of it?

DG: Well, it is certainly discouraging to be living in such a wave of war euphoria. While that wave is wide, it is not very deep. The ruling class had a broader agenda and long-term goals behind this particular war. We need to have a long-term perspective. The logic of the system will lead to other interventions, and we want to be able to start from a stronger place to try to stop the next one.

During the past 10 years, there have been a number of important, although small, movements on international issues: around Central America, around apartheid, around Palestinian rights, and the recent surge of mass anti-war activity. I wonder what the possibilities are for pulling this all together into a strong and ongoing anti-interventionist front. To be successful, such a front would have to be firmly rooted in anti-racism and in challenging social priorities at home.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

DG: Despite the current orgy of jingoism, we need to maintain a sense of history, a sense of perspective. As human beings, we can never accept the depreciation of human life because the people happen to be Iraqi or Salvadoran or Angolan. If we maintain our sense of identification with humanity, especially the majority of human beings, who live in the Third World, we won’t—even in the face of the most sophisticated media barrages—lose either our moral bearings or our sense of purpose.

To view part 3 of a video of a 1998 interview with David Gilbert, you can click on the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK_yU5-ZEGE


Next: A Millionaire lyrics