Interview: Sam Baker, Cosmopolitan editor (Evening Standard)
Sam Baker and the sexual politics of Cosmo. By David Rowan
HOLD the orgasms - Cosmo has discovered politics. After a 32-year crusade to locate G-spots and expose male flesh, the magazine's new obsession is the contenders for the keys to Number 10.
Next month, among spreads on breast-enhancement and threesomes, Cosmopolitan's readers are being offered interviews with those unlikeliest of pinups, the three main party leaders.
It is certainly an eccentric way to fight one of the most brutal circulation wars in recent women's-magazine history. But Sam Baker, Cosmo's editor since July, is on a mission that she says is about empowering a generation of politically disengaged women. With surveys suggesting that four in five women under 24 intend not to vote, her "High Heeled Votes" campaign, she says, is about "ensuring that women's issues are on the political agenda and that politicians take this group of voters seriously".
In the April edition, that means interviews with Blair, Howard and Kennedy; the following month, Cosmo will unveil election campaign ads designed according to reader research. Not that Baker, 37, has entirely dispensed with the magazine's more traditional fare - which in April's edition includes a naked Footballers' Wives actor and a guide to finding your "E" spot (that's Emotional Orgasm). It is just that she has also found room to quiz the three leaders about unlicensed minicabs, abortion, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
The four-page result is rather less earthmoving than Cosmo's more usual real-guy confessions. Michael Howard does take Baker home with him, but only to show how relaxed he can be over a morning coffee poured by his wife. Blair comes over as far more hard-to-get, never quite satisfying her with those corny lines of his. The cover line - "See grown men beg!" (for your vote, that is) - looks somewhat oversold.
"Whenever Labour or the Conservatives talk about women, it's always about maternity rights or pensions, which very much affect older women," Baker says in her office behind Carnaby Street. "But no one's talking about first-time buyers, student loans, Sexually Transmitted Infections or getting home safely at night. We felt we were pretty unique in making these middle-aged men talk about sexual health." It took far more negotiation to get Blair to commit than the others - and in the interviews, he is the most evasive on abortion.
The campaign all sounds very noble - but how, exactly, will this help Baker to sell magazines? "It's not that politics will sell magazines," she says. "I just wanted to get people to see the breadth of content that's in Cosmo. It does, contrary to popular opinion, have a campaigning history. I wanted to bring back Cosmo's news agenda, some of that 'oomph' that it used to have. With this voting campaign, everyone's wanted to talk about it. For the first time since I've been here, we've started having articles about Cosmo that haven't had the word 'sex' in."
THIS suggests that Baker's agenda is more about generating publicity. She admits that part of her goal is to use newspaper coverage to make potential readers rethink their prejudices about the magazine. "All of the relationships and sex and fashion content is incredibly important, but it's not the only thing that's in Cosmo," she says. "I wanted to get the women who had not considered it part of their repertoire just to pick it up. If they're reading their Sunday Times, and they see an article about us which talks about 'stressorexia', or why young women aren't voting, that might make them go into their newsagents."
So it's simply a PR strategy aimed at differentiation - a cheaper alternative, perhaps, to cover mounts? "No, there's no point being different for the sake of it," Baker insists. "I do think it's in keeping with Cosmo. People say these magazines don't do politics, but what is politics? It's the fact that STIs are massively on the increase, that our readers can't get on the housing ladder."
She is certainly an effective operator. In the six months to December, Baker lifted Cosmopolitan's circulation to 478,000, a 24-year high, in the face of tough competition - success that she attributes to a more "modern, glamorous" look since a redesign, a less "ghettoised" use of the sexual features, and better use of new and established writers.
Before that, she spent five years editing Company, where she boosted sales by 50 per cent - just as her earlier relaunch of Just Seventeen as J-17 was credited with 220 per cent year-on-year rise. Oh, and in the six months between leaving Company and joining Cosmo, she also managed to write a novel, Fashion Victim, reported to have earned her a six-figure advance on both sides of the Atlantic. The book is out in June, and she is currently writing a second. Her husband, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, is also an author.
Baker's success reflects badly on the London College of Printing, which rejected her at 18 from a journalisttraining course. "Their exact words were that I didn't have what it took to make it in magazines," she says with a grin. "I was absolutely distraught, and I think that's motivated me for the rest of my life." Instead, she studied politics at Birmingham University, before starting her career at Chat and then Take a Break.
Despite her current campaign, Baker has never been active politically. And for all Cosmo's heritage, she certainly will not call herself a feminist. "I probably would have done in the Eighties, but not now. The fact is that nobody wants to be called a feminist today," she says.
"Feminism is perceived as antimen. I don't think feminism means anything to most women in their early twenties. It's a historical concept almost - which will probably make Germaine Greer combust."
AS BAKER sees it, Helen Gurley Brown, the magazine's founder, was concerned not about "feminism", but about enabling ordinary woman to achieve some semblance of equality. "We're not in the business of syndromes and isms," she says. "We're in the business of 'Are you going to get home safely?', or why more and more young women are taking coke."
Still, isn't she worried about the new competition in the market, with well-funded weeklies such as Grazia threatening the shake-up that last year hit the men's monthlies?
"Grazia's interesting, it's brave, and bits of it are very good," she says carefully. "But I'm not quite sure I can see where it's going to end up. It's totally celeb focused, but you've got a lot of magazines already selling to the celeb market, and a lot are cheaper and have more of it."
Glamour, she says, is "a very different proposition to Cosmo, a bitesized read [where] we could last you the month". Nor do the other newcomers worry her, she says, pointing out that Cosmopolitan's global reach now stretches to 53 editions and 39 million readers. "We feel like we're in a pretty good place."
But maybe the genius in Baker's plan is to offer an excuse to readers previously too embarrassed to be seen enjoying all those sexual confessions.
Now, at least, they can claim to be buying Cosmo for the political coverage.
(Evening Standard, March 9 2005)
HOLD the orgasms - Cosmo has discovered politics. After a 32-year crusade to locate G-spots and expose male flesh, the magazine's new obsession is the contenders for the keys to Number 10.
Next month, among spreads on breast-enhancement and threesomes, Cosmopolitan's readers are being offered interviews with those unlikeliest of pinups, the three main party leaders.
It is certainly an eccentric way to fight one of the most brutal circulation wars in recent women's-magazine history. But Sam Baker, Cosmo's editor since July, is on a mission that she says is about empowering a generation of politically disengaged women. With surveys suggesting that four in five women under 24 intend not to vote, her "High Heeled Votes" campaign, she says, is about "ensuring that women's issues are on the political agenda and that politicians take this group of voters seriously".
In the April edition, that means interviews with Blair, Howard and Kennedy; the following month, Cosmo will unveil election campaign ads designed according to reader research. Not that Baker, 37, has entirely dispensed with the magazine's more traditional fare - which in April's edition includes a naked Footballers' Wives actor and a guide to finding your "E" spot (that's Emotional Orgasm). It is just that she has also found room to quiz the three leaders about unlicensed minicabs, abortion, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
The four-page result is rather less earthmoving than Cosmo's more usual real-guy confessions. Michael Howard does take Baker home with him, but only to show how relaxed he can be over a morning coffee poured by his wife. Blair comes over as far more hard-to-get, never quite satisfying her with those corny lines of his. The cover line - "See grown men beg!" (for your vote, that is) - looks somewhat oversold.
"Whenever Labour or the Conservatives talk about women, it's always about maternity rights or pensions, which very much affect older women," Baker says in her office behind Carnaby Street. "But no one's talking about first-time buyers, student loans, Sexually Transmitted Infections or getting home safely at night. We felt we were pretty unique in making these middle-aged men talk about sexual health." It took far more negotiation to get Blair to commit than the others - and in the interviews, he is the most evasive on abortion.
The campaign all sounds very noble - but how, exactly, will this help Baker to sell magazines? "It's not that politics will sell magazines," she says. "I just wanted to get people to see the breadth of content that's in Cosmo. It does, contrary to popular opinion, have a campaigning history. I wanted to bring back Cosmo's news agenda, some of that 'oomph' that it used to have. With this voting campaign, everyone's wanted to talk about it. For the first time since I've been here, we've started having articles about Cosmo that haven't had the word 'sex' in."
THIS suggests that Baker's agenda is more about generating publicity. She admits that part of her goal is to use newspaper coverage to make potential readers rethink their prejudices about the magazine. "All of the relationships and sex and fashion content is incredibly important, but it's not the only thing that's in Cosmo," she says. "I wanted to get the women who had not considered it part of their repertoire just to pick it up. If they're reading their Sunday Times, and they see an article about us which talks about 'stressorexia', or why young women aren't voting, that might make them go into their newsagents."
So it's simply a PR strategy aimed at differentiation - a cheaper alternative, perhaps, to cover mounts? "No, there's no point being different for the sake of it," Baker insists. "I do think it's in keeping with Cosmo. People say these magazines don't do politics, but what is politics? It's the fact that STIs are massively on the increase, that our readers can't get on the housing ladder."
She is certainly an effective operator. In the six months to December, Baker lifted Cosmopolitan's circulation to 478,000, a 24-year high, in the face of tough competition - success that she attributes to a more "modern, glamorous" look since a redesign, a less "ghettoised" use of the sexual features, and better use of new and established writers.
Before that, she spent five years editing Company, where she boosted sales by 50 per cent - just as her earlier relaunch of Just Seventeen as J-17 was credited with 220 per cent year-on-year rise. Oh, and in the six months between leaving Company and joining Cosmo, she also managed to write a novel, Fashion Victim, reported to have earned her a six-figure advance on both sides of the Atlantic. The book is out in June, and she is currently writing a second. Her husband, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, is also an author.
Baker's success reflects badly on the London College of Printing, which rejected her at 18 from a journalisttraining course. "Their exact words were that I didn't have what it took to make it in magazines," she says with a grin. "I was absolutely distraught, and I think that's motivated me for the rest of my life." Instead, she studied politics at Birmingham University, before starting her career at Chat and then Take a Break.
Despite her current campaign, Baker has never been active politically. And for all Cosmo's heritage, she certainly will not call herself a feminist. "I probably would have done in the Eighties, but not now. The fact is that nobody wants to be called a feminist today," she says.
"Feminism is perceived as antimen. I don't think feminism means anything to most women in their early twenties. It's a historical concept almost - which will probably make Germaine Greer combust."
AS BAKER sees it, Helen Gurley Brown, the magazine's founder, was concerned not about "feminism", but about enabling ordinary woman to achieve some semblance of equality. "We're not in the business of syndromes and isms," she says. "We're in the business of 'Are you going to get home safely?', or why more and more young women are taking coke."
Still, isn't she worried about the new competition in the market, with well-funded weeklies such as Grazia threatening the shake-up that last year hit the men's monthlies?
"Grazia's interesting, it's brave, and bits of it are very good," she says carefully. "But I'm not quite sure I can see where it's going to end up. It's totally celeb focused, but you've got a lot of magazines already selling to the celeb market, and a lot are cheaper and have more of it."
Glamour, she says, is "a very different proposition to Cosmo, a bitesized read [where] we could last you the month". Nor do the other newcomers worry her, she says, pointing out that Cosmopolitan's global reach now stretches to 53 editions and 39 million readers. "We feel like we're in a pretty good place."
But maybe the genius in Baker's plan is to offer an excuse to readers previously too embarrassed to be seen enjoying all those sexual confessions.
Now, at least, they can claim to be buying Cosmo for the political coverage.
(Evening Standard, March 9 2005)
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