URBAN SURVIVAL MANUALS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300120005-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 14, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 29, 1976
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

or Release 2084/ ql'"0'12e
Urban Survival Manuals
Who are the top tennis teachers in never would have been written about if
Los Angeles? What is the gay comntu- we hadn't been here," says Editor
nity like in Washington, D.C.? Who is Broyles, a onetime writer for the Brit-
the best sportswriter in Texas? Is Chi- ish weekly Economist. He may well be
cago's drinking water polluted? right. Texas Monthly has boldly at-
tacked Dallas banking institutions,
All of these questions have some- Houston law firms, airport safety and
thing in common. They are asked-and that most sacred of cows, college foot-
answered-by a lively gaggle of publi- ball. Texas Monthly has lacked original-
cations known as city magazines, a di- ity and punch in its graphics, but it has
verse, eclectic and sometimes unruly become an articulate voice for the ris-
group of enterprises to crowd under one ing urban consciousness in the third
rubric. But most, whatever else they do, most populous state in the Union.
aspire to be urban survival manuals, ' Chicago (circ. 140,000) began life
guiding their readers toward the nest 24 years ago as Chicago Guide, a su-
that city life has to offer while warning permarket giveaway that listed radio
them away from its pitfalls and dangers. programs of the city's classical music
The genre is by and large prospering: station, WFMT. In 1971, Publisher Ray-
while magazines in general lost adver- mond Nordstrand, 43, who came to Chi-
tising pages in 1975, city magazines as cago from WFMT (he is still its station
a group increased their ads by some manager), decided. to add articles and
1,100 pages over 1974, a gain of more start selling the magazine to the public.
than 10%. In fact, four of the five U.S. Since then it has become one of the fat-
monthlies with the fastest growing ad- test books in the country. Today, a typ-
vertising volume are city magazines.* ical 230-page issue carries more than 100
Most of the successful city maga- pages of advertising. Last year Nord-
zines have borrowed-some of them strand dropped the "Guide" from Chi-
heavily-from the graphics, format and cagos title. But on the inside, Chicago
trendy chic of Nov York (circ. 364,000), is still mostly a gray, though useful, land-
the pacesetting weekly first published as scape of listings that includes in a typ-
an independent magazine by Clay Felk- ical issue an index guide to 1,000-plus
er in 1967. (Felker had been its editor local events, critiques of nearly 80 films,
in an earlier and simpler incarnation, as well as WFMT radio and public TV
when it was a Sunday supplement of the listings. Chicago runs occasional pieces
now defunct New York herald-Tri- of fiction and articles that cover every-
bune.) Regular features akin to Felker's thing from the Mafia. to houseplants in
"The Underground Gourmet" (budget a style that one reader describes as
minded restaurant reviews) and "The "funky, chic lakeside journalism."
Passionate Shopper" are staple fare, and - Philadelphia (circ. 122,000) has
New York's penchant for parlor-game no peers among city magazines in in-
lists ("The Ten Worst Judges," "The 100 vestigative reporting. Among the imag-
Greatest Freebies in Town") has been inatively illustrated magazine's bigger
widely copied. Unlike New York, which muckraking scoops: the revelation that
often ranges afield to cover events of na- a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter was
tional interest (last week's cover story blackmailing banks and businesses by
was a profile of Jimmy Carter), other threatening to give them bad publicity
city magazines-all of them monthlies (the reporter was suspended from the In-
--generally confine their efforts to local quirerand eventually convicted), and an
stories. Among the best: expose detailing how local politicians
' Texas Monthly (circ. 185,000), had fouled up Philadelphia's Bicenten-
based in Austin, is a city magazine that nial celebration by mismanaging funds
covers an entire state with an enthusi- (as a result, the city restored to the wel-
asm that reflects the youth of Publisher fare fund $500,000 that it had earlier di-
Michael Levy, 29, and Editor William verted to the Bicentennial). Philadel-
Broyles, 31. Levy, a Wharton School of phia's success is due to the unwavering
business graduate who had practically localism of Publisher Ilerbert Lipson,
no journalism experience before starting 46, who was a charter member of a
Texas Monthly, gave up the idea of con- booster organization, Action Philadel-
fining a magazine to Houston or Dallas phia, before taking Philadelphia over
because neither city seemed likely to from his father in 1961. "We wouldn't
provide a circulation of 100,000-the do a piece on Jerry Ford," he says,
minimum he felt he needed to succeed. "unless it turned out he was horn in
Instead, three years ago, he started a Philadelphia."
magazine that would appeal to urban - Los Angeles (circ. 100,000)., now
dwellers anywhere in the state. "We like owned by a medical-book publisher, was
to think we're writing about things that once eagerly sought by New York's Felk-
"Chicago, Los Angeles. The Washingtonian and er. Los Angeles has developed over the
us,.
1 , he is , , a, 1 t r rnto a smooth, narrow-fo-
,pproved For Release 200 ff /~e,b6iA-I I' -b1li4t0003od
 cus magazine that is deliberq~jgg &
occupied with helping its readers to "get
the good life together" and, like many
of its affluent readers, only mildly con-
cerned with Los Angeles politics and
problems. -City government is just not
a spectator sport here as it is in other cit-
ies," explains Editor Geoff Miller, 39,
who joined Los Angeles shortly after
graduating from U.C.L.A. The sport in,
Los Angeles is leisure, and the maga-
zine helps its readers play by publish-
ing lists of 52 suggested weekend trips
(an annual feature), guides to public ten-
nis courts and 31 ways to keep the kids
busy in August. Miller insists he is not
worried about New York look-alike New
West, a Felker bi-weekly that begins
publication next month in Los Angeles.
He takes comfort in the fact that New
West is aiming ata slightly younger, less
well-off audience.
- The Washingtonian (circ.
64,000) is an urbane and witty ten-year-
old magazine published by Laughlin
Phillips, 50, a liberal, wealthy Washing-
tonian who co-founded the magazine
after 15 years in the CIA. He and Editor
Jack Limpert, 41, a former U.P.I. re-
porter and newspaper editor, aim to
please a widely scattered metropolitan
area audience with wining-and-dining
columns, canny pieces on D.C. notables,
some press criticism and generally light,
glossy cover stories: "Sex, Power and
Politics," for instance, or "Adventures
in the Loveless World of the Sexually
Liberated" (a sellout). The Washingto-
nian publishes service features that
sometimes cost it dearly. Example: an
article advising readers that they could
buy furniture at a lower cost directly
from North Carolina manufacturers
prompted local furniture stores to pull
their advertising.
One of the criticisms sometimes lev-
eled at the Washingtonian and other city
magazines is that they serve a narrow
segment of the urban population, large-
ly ignoring blacks in mostly black Wash-
ington, for example, and Chicanos in
Los Angeles. City magazines take this
course, observes Esquire Columnist
Nora Ephron, because they are really
glossy shopping guides for the privi-
leged. They "have taken food and home
furnishings and plant care," she wrote
recently, "and surrounded them with
just enough political and sociological re-
porting to give readers an excuse to buy
them."
Not every city magazine publisher
who takes the field succeeds. Within the
last year or two, for example, magazines
in Chicago, San Francisco and Detroit
have closed their doors. But another
halt dozen or so around the U.S. are
coming along well. D. The Magazine of
Dallas, founded in 1974, has steadily in-
creased its circulation, which is now
42,000, and is already: in, the black.
Cleveland, which began publication in
1972, now has a circulation of 45,000,
and in 1974 had the greatest advertis-
ing growth of any U.S. monthly.
Approved
fff eYease l%lYiT5A'6R'-JI88-01314R000300120005-5
umbing the Real World of Leaks
low jdprnalists by the way he slipped a congressional report on the CIA to,
City's ashy Village Voice. Henry Kissinger complained that "highly
own con dential Middle East negotiations and, having denounced the
rimand of e of his closest aides, who had leaked with Kissinger's appr,
quick fadin tnk-carries about as much weight as a diplomatic deni
New Yoi Times Columnist William Safire (a Kissinger coil
the ablest privatk explainer of public policy in Washington. Hi I
A recent story in he Times begins: "Henry A. Kissinger ha
again in the busine of `exporting revolution.' " The story g
with what he profess \s not to want to say publicly. W
leaks, much of the officr 1 huffing and puffing about the su
been compromised. On t e record of the past few y
wash. Too much has been tamped confidential
in order to conceal hanky-p y and ineptitude,
not secrets. Even the celebr d 47 volumes of
the Pentagon papers contained, s a Pentagon of-
ficial admitted, "only 27 pages kat gave us rea
iel Schorr's case, Village Voice readks must h
dentious maunderings and its few careNlly biwd-
lot of fel-
val, but perhaps
gue in Nixon's day
atefully regard him as
leaks are easy to spot.
issinger thus "goes public"
ry is that national security has
'r Bickel, a Yale law professor. In his posth'
of news are all too inviting, all too easily achieved, an
ued and won the Pentagon papers case, which resulted in th
m with impunity." This makes newspapers sound uncomfortably
ny people are disquieted that editors should have the power to print w
Still leaks can damage. The real effe of the
Pentagon papers was to reveal the Gov n ent's
systematic deception of the public. The eal m-
age of the Schorr leak, once the Ho e of R
resentatives had voted to keep the r port seer
cret. The Kissinger leak warned reign minis-
ters that what they say in confi.d ce may later
But even if security is not v plated, does not
the Government have a right t secrecy, and to
private discussion? Indeed it d as as well as the
responsibility to keep it priva e. No one can object if an Administration, by discipline
and discretion, saves itself f om too many unseemly dis losures. In the poisoned at-
mosphere of Viet Nam and Vatergate, men who leaked Are denounced as traitors or
hailed as heroes, but in m st instances were neither. A le by a man of conscience,
upset by wrongdoing and illing to take the consequences, d erves honoring. But most
leaks serve the self-inter st of those who supply them, or me from secondary bu-
argument has lost.
Where the public
and the contro
paper had
inal fe
falls
Brest of society as a
;`the weight of the
. is that secrecy
ft of them,
sually
Not to publish, when the information adds to the public knowledge, would seem to
them even more of an arrogance of power. All in all, it is easier to prove a democracy
made sounder by public knowledge than a nation weakened by secrets revealed.
 Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300120005-5
C 9'- o /
?NL..L/
Z----
/_ Q fl "~ ~y E/ .es
~.~1 s HiugTu.vt~9x)
Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300120005-5