BROOKE GLADSTONE: Myrna Blyth, for two decades editor in chief of Ladies Home Journal and founding editor of More, has written a tell-all that has incensed many of her former colleagues in the magazine world. She calls these high-powered, pampered, liberal editors, anchorwomen and publicists "spin sisters," and she says they use glossy magazines or their TV equivalents to foist their petty obsessions and lefty politics on an audience that does not share their values. "The spin sisters," says Blyth, set up false expectations for beauty and for happiness, celebrate selfishness and suggest the world is a dangerous place riddled with killer mattresses, cell phones and hair dyes, and worst of all, crippling stress." Blyth says "The spin sisters rake in the dough by selling images of women as victims, but it's the spin sisters themselves who are doing the victimizing." Myrna, do I have this right?

MYRNA BLYTH: Well, it is - to a large degree you do. I do think media for women tell women constantly that they are frazzled and frumpy and have so many things to be fearful about, which of course is not an accurate picture of women's lives today.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Let's go through some of the, the principal images or ideas that you think only do us harm. You talk about the magazine cover where they took a year old picture of Julia Roberts' head and put it on a 4 year old picture of her body.

MYRNA BLYTH: Absolutely. And then they said "the real Julia Roberts." Well, of course - those are the techniques that people use.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you did that yourself, right, at Ladies Home Journal?

MYRNA BLYTH: To some degree. I mean once, I admit it, I confess, we put Cher, who was wearing something absolutely impossible, and sort of changed her clothes, and she got very upset, but we did say we did less to Cher than Cher has done to herself, but she had a reason to complain. But you know, that's not - that's just part of it. What I, what concerns me even more are telling women that everyone is stressed. We have defined stress so far downward, it has become the cellulite of today -- everybody's got it. And you know, women feel that if they have, they have to come home and decide between Domino's or Hamburger Helper, that's stress. Well that's not stress. And I really wrote the book so that women would realize that they are getting only one point of view about a whole variety of things. You know, magazines will say to women as they did in the last presidential election, "a vote for Gore is a vote for you," even though half their readers in their own polls said they were voting for George W. Bush. Well, is that fair, to only give one point of view?

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now you write, and I quote, "I am partly to blame for creating the negative images of victimization and unhappiness that bombard women today." It made you successful. If it so disgusted you, why didn't you stop when it could have done some good?

MYRNA BLYTH: You know, I think I did two things that I think are very important. In the mid-'90s something called The Media Research Center, which I really didn't know what it was, a conservative media watchdog group, did say that the Ladies Home Journal, when it came to politics and social issues was by far the most unbiased magazine. And I was always very concerned of showing both sides about social issues. And the other thing I did in the late '90s when I really was so tired of sending messages like stress, stress, stress, I started More magazine, which is a magazine for women in their 40s and 50s, and it is a rare magazine with an optimistic basis.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I wonder -- women born after 1970, so called "third wave feminists," don't appear to require that the curtain be pulled back on the women's magazine business. They already seem to know. They know about the consumer values, the manipulation, the unrealistic expectations, the air-brushing -- they know what they're buying -- empty calories, a little dessert after an actual meal.

MYRNA BLYTH: But I do think it has influence. I do think Cosmopolitan, which is read by young women, and their belief that all women are sexually free, does influence teenagers which may not be accurate. What's interesting to me about feminism is how it has morphed into narcissism. In other words, nowadays, you are supposed to do it for yourself because you deserve it --basically shopping and pampering. You know? And you're supposed to have time for yourself. As I think I say in the book, that taking the kids to the beach - that's work. Having a pedicure -- that's for you. [LAUGHTER] Not having time for a pedicure -- that's stress. Certainly that's not what feminism was about, but that's what it's morphed to in women's magazines.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I have to admit that this book, which was really fun--

MYRNA BLYTH: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- was also one of [LAUGHS] the cattier books that I have ever read. For instance, and I'll give you a couple of examples--

MYRNA BLYTH: Sure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- you sniff at the spin sisters pastel-colored suits, and you called CNN's Margaret Carlson a Harry Potter lookalike--

MYRNA BLYTH:Oh, you know, but let me be honest -- women like Katie Couric and Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer market themselves to women like just one of the girls. That's part of this unique power they have. You know, they can dish diets and grill the president. They can gush over celebrities and report from Iraq. It's a unique position that men in media do not have. They tend to market themselves just like you. Well, let's be honest -- someone who earns 13 to 16 million dollars a year is not just like most women in America. It's a marketing technique. And yet a very influential one. And that's what I was pointing out.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: All right. Thank you very much.

MYRNA BLYTH: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Myrna Blyth is author of Spin Sisters: How the Women of Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the women of America.