By Jennifer Cox

   Jane Pratt thinks husbands are a fine idea as ideas go.
   But if you read her magazine, as more and more young women are doing, you'll find a dearth of how-to-catch- a-husband stories.
   You'll find none, actually.
   That's one of the qualities that distinguishes Jane from a lot of the more established titles aimed at young women.
   It's very much by design.
   "There’s a new generation of women," Pratt says. "Other magazines previously were supposed to be about getting a husband. They were beauty and fashion related.
   "Our readers have feminist mothers, some are third-generation feminists," she says. "It’s not that they don’t like men. They just enjoy being single."
   Jane readers are traditionally single, college-educated, twenty-something women who make a median income of over $50,000, like many of the readers of traditional women’s titles.
   But Pratt, who was editor in chief of the "alternative" young women’s magazine Sassy through its run from 1988 to 1994, says her readers don’t have a "Cosmo" attitude.
   "Now women are a little like men. They like the bachelor, or bachelorette, part. Also, friends have become their family. The magazine tries to mimic what they care about-- relationships, politics, entertainment, music, fashion."
   Jane was launched in September 1997 with a rate base of 400,000. That has risen to 500,000, with a current total circulation of 541,611.
   When S.I. Newhouse bought Fairchild Publications last year, observers saw two gems of special interest to the chairman of Conde Nast. One was certainly W, the fast-rising fashion magazine, and the other was Jane. No sooner had the deal been announced than talk began that either Pratt would become editor of  the long-ailing Mademoiselle or that Newhouse would fold that title into Jane.
   Although Jane is now widely recognized as occupying an important niche outside the mainstream of women’s publications, it wasn’t easy getting there.
   "It was a huge challenge to launch. I heard a lot of people say, ‘Why do we need another magazine for twenty- something women?’" she says.
   "In the beginning everyone was expecting it to be scandalous, like Sassy. But I didn’t want to build the magazine on sensationalism."
   So, at the start, Pratt tamed herself and her crew.
   Well, almost.
   A few months back there were reports that Jane advertisers were threatening to withdraw from the magazine if Pratt put Monica Lewinsky on the April cover.
   They felt Lewinsky was not the sort of cover material appropriate for the Jane reader.   Pratt felt otherwise.
   "The controversy made me want to do it even more," she says. "It’s fun to shock ourselves."
   Jane writers, says Pratt, are active participants in their stories rather than silent bystanders. They are never encouraged to try to be objective.
   "Our staff is out there living and experiencing," she says. "For this generation, there’s such a mistrust of authority. They know there is a bias. Instead of denying it, we admit the bias."
   Pratt says she tries to make the magazine an extended "girl’s club."
   "When I want to know if a movie’s good, I don’t go to an expert; I’ll go to a good friend," she says. "We offer girl-friendly advice, not expert advice."
   Pratt also says she tries to address all of the aspects of her readers’ lives, including subjects Jane competitors refuse to broach.
   "We are a complete lifestyle magazine, not a relationship oriented magazine. We cover lots of music, technology, fiction. Other magazines don’t," she says. "We are more of a complete, big picture magazine."
   Pratt, who starred in two short-lived talk shows on Fox ("Jane") and Lifetime ("Jane Pratt") in between her editor runs at Sassy and Jane, has not ruled out a return to the small screen.
   "I love magazines; it’s the medium I know best. But, there’s a whole other thrill with TV. It’s hard to do substantial stories on television, but the reach with TV is incredible," she says.
   "The way Martha Stewart does it with her magazine and television show, it’s amazing," Pratt continues. "I would be very interested in doing something like that with Jane. Yeah, it would be very interesting."

-Jennifer Cox is a staff writer for Media Life.

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