Excerpt: The Story of Mother Earth News

THE STORY OF MOTHER EARTH NEWS

(Page 6 of 7)
By Sara Pacher
March/April 1990



"I supported Carter for reelection in 1980 because I knew he understood environmental issues in depth. Reagan, on the other hand, is an ecological illiterate. I knew he was an anticonservationist. When we were both governors, he liked to belittle conservationists; he would come right out and refer to environmentalists as 'those kooks.' Still, I had no idea that—once in office—he would carry out such a sweeping attack on the environment. The foxes now run the henhouse."

We soon felt the fallout of those policies and the changed attitudes. By 1984, subscriptions had dropped. Paper, printing, and postage costs continued their upward spiral. Many advertisers mistakenly began to view us as a backward-looking, hippie publication. Revenues shrank, and the Eco-Village had to be closed. A painful staff layoff followed, though our gardeners, Susan and Franklin Sides, kept a small but equally valid research garden near their home. Mother's Tours became another victim, partly because the editorial staff needed to be cut, too, and I was needed full-time as a writer and an editor, but partly because the "me generation" had also become the "stay home generation"—a xenophobia fueled by Reagan's Evil Empire mentality and his chest-pounding Ram-boesque chauvinism.

Eco-Village one attracted thousands of readers to pay a visit.

Beekeeping (above) and hydroponic gardening (right) were also staple of Mother's hands-on teaching style. Indeed, in its heyday, the magazine functioned almost like an open-air university.

By late 1985, the magazine faced very tough going. Then, young and energetic Owen Lipstein came to the rescue. Five years earlier, he had, like John Shuttleworth, started a magazine, American Health, on a shoestring, riding the crest of the l980s' concern with personal health and fitness to remarkable success. Bruce Woods stayed on as editor of Mother, and computer technology, express mail, and fax machines allowed the editorial staff to remain in the North Carolina mountains, though this meant additional trimming of other types of staff. "Lean and mean," it's called in the corporate world.

But, again, there were compensations. Wrapped in a new package and graced with the talent of top photographers. Mother Earth News' sane, planet-saving, lifesaving, cost-saving how-to themes attracted both old and new readers and advertisers alike. By 1988 it had the fastest-growing advertising revenues of any magazine in the country, even while, editorially, it was still keeping the faith and showing the way.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1990-03-01/The-Story-of-the-Mother-Earth-News.aspx?page=6#ixzz1JiGp69eL

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