If you followed that final link in the previous post, you discovered a story about lawmakers complaining about smokeless tobacco (that’s chewing tobacco and snuff to the rest of us) targeting teens. This morning, U.S. Tobacco Company, announced they were no longer going to advertise in youth oriented magazines. (However, I anticipate they will divert that spending to another category when they discover that plus-size women enjoy a good chew every once in a while).

According to the Washington Post, “San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager ruled that R.J. Reynolds Co., the maker of Camel and Winston cigarettes, had acted improperly by running cigarette ads in magazines, such as Vibe, Spin and Rolling Stone, that have large teenage readerships. He fined the company $20 million.”

Not a kool time to be a magazine hooked on cig advertising, or for that matter, on any form of tobacco advertising.

With no humorous reference to the previous post, I’ll point to a story in the NY Post that reports that “O,” the Oprah Magazine, is seeing declining newstand sales. However, the reason may be because all those women (I’m biting my fingers here to keep from referring to the previous post) are subscribing to it.

The LA Times runs a feature on Grace Magazine, a new launch for “plus-size” women. The article is filled with intendend (and some unintended) puns (”it’s a huge, huge market”).

Quote:

Samir Husni, the head of University of Mississippi’s magazine program. “There may be many, many large women out there, but they don’t necessarily want to focus on that aspect of themselves. That’s why there is not a successful Divorce magazine. Grace may get a cult following, but I believe they will have trouble attracting a mass readership.”

Grace editor Ceslie Armstrong says that 70% of American women wear size 12 or above (thus the “huge” pun), but maybe Husni has a point.

Since I stopped criticizing economists for being clueless about unemployment numbers, I can’t gloat that the May numbers “surprised” economists by sinking to 5.8%.

Later: Here’s a link to what some economists said about today’s numbers.