BOB GARFIELD: Generally speaking, the editors at, say, Newsweek, don't have a problem coming up with story ideas. They look back a week and rehash the news. If that doesn't suggest a cover story, they can always explain all world religion or terrorism or Britney Spears. But some editors haven't the luxury afforded by random events -- golfing, hunting, karate, beauty, fitness -- specialty publications, not news-driven, have to generate stories relying solely on their own editorial imaginations while basically covering the same material again and again and again. [CLIP OF STORY MEETING AT FITNESS MAGAZINE]

WOMAN: I was thinking obviously our average reader doesn't have a trainer all the time--

WOMAN: Right.

WOMAN: -- but if we could do some kind of comparison where we have three women or four women start a six week regimen--

WOMAN: Like how am I doing.

WOMAN: Yeah.

WOMAN: -- where everyone -- are we doing that?

WOMAN: We're trying to do it. It's hard...

BOB GARFIELD: This is the story meeting at Fitness, the women's magazine of body, mind and spirit, and things are a little tense. Every story suggested seems so-- been-done-already.

EMILY LISTFIELD: ...there's something there, but I don't think we nailed it.

WOMAN: What if we even throw diet into the mix and say, you know, maybe they all want to lose--

WOMAN: Like different tactics but--

WOMAN: -- and one person tries diet alone; one person tries exercise alone; and then another person has both.

EMILY LISTFIELD: But we tell people all the time that you need both.

BOB GARFIELD: One by one, the staffers pitch ideas, and one by one, gently, editor in chief Emily Listfield shoots them down, but in time the magazine will be filled because, Listfield explains, it's just a question of tuning in to the readers.

EMILY LISTFIELD: It's just listening to women talk, and when you listen to women talk, you get a million ideas. There's something new every day that they're curious about.

BOB GARFIELD:The problem is that curiosity is limited to very few spheres of human existence. For instance, in the June issue, the cover boasted a 30 minute thigh sculpting workout, whereas in May it was a better butt in 10 minutes, and in July it was the breakthrough workout to burn fat all day long. Fitness, of course, is for women, and Men's Health magazine has concerns far different from feminine body obsession. Steve Perrine is the editorial creative director of Men's Health.

STEVE PERRINE: Women tend to be self-conscious about their thighs and their butts, and men tend to be self-conscious about their stomachs.

BOB GARFIELD: So hence, in July the fastest ab plan ever; in June you had a story - 10 greatest ab exercises ever; May - All-Star Abs - October -Find Your Abs - September - Machine-Built Abs. Lot of Abs stories.

STEVE PERRINE: Well, some of the stories are part of the plans that we put together which guys can follow month to month; others are very particular interesting takes. For example, the All Star Abs, what we did is we picked a bunch of athletes and celebrities who are in particularly great shape, and we had them give us their workouts.

BOB GARFIELD:Celebrity Abs - nice touch. Both editors insist their magazines offer fresh takes on the kinds of issues most important to their readers. In fact, according to John Fine, my Advertising Age colleague on the magazine beat, readers may want nothing more from their glossies than a game effort to wrap familiar material in new packages, because whether the category is beauty or fitness or golf, these magazines tend to be feeding fantasies in the first place.

STEVE PERRINE: There's always the hope that in six months, you know, you're going to, you know, golf a 72. I mean there's always the hope that in six months, you know, you're going to drop 20 pounds and, you know, put on 15 pounds of lean body weight. But I mean if you're looking at it really obsessively, there's an infinite amount of variation, there's an infinite amount of ways you can talk about it. It becomes, I don't know, like a song that you listen to over and over again.

BOB GARFIELD: Or maybe, in its endless superficial variation on theme, like pornography. Or maybe another vice all together.

JOHN ATWOOD:To me instruction editorial is the heroin of golf magazines. It may make you feel good for a moment, but it really kills the creativity in the publication, I think.

BOB GARFIELD:John Atwood is editor in chief of Travel & Leisure Golf, a magazine that prides itself on transcending the 5 Tips for Mastering the Sand Wedge sort of material that fills its competition month after month. We visited his editorial meeting too and found a magazine with content bounded only by the limitations of its travel budget.

JOHN ATWOOD: Oh, Ireland -- on our, one of our trips last year, we used the services of a helicopter company, and that seems to be becoming the preferred mode of transportation around Ireland, so you know, given who our audience is, I think we need to do something on that topic.

BOB GARFIELD:The Irish helicopter tour was such a fetching subject, in fact, that Travel & Leisure Golf had done it already -- in the current issue. No problem for coming issues though. There are many other countries and several other modes of transportation. Editors such as Atwood have one sort of challenge - interesting essentially the same audience month after month. Diane Forden of Bridal Guide magazine has the opposite problem -- interesting an ever-changing pool of readers without boring herself right out of her skull. Her readership turns over every six to fourteen months.

WOMAN: So that's the creative challenge, when, especially when you work for a bridal magazine, is how do we keep this material fresh, how do we keep it relevant, how do we, you know, get the reader excited, keep ourselves excited?

BOB GARFIELD:But every month she has to do a wedding gown story, and every month she has to do a wedding planning story, and every month she has to do a cake story.

WOMAN: We don't want to photograph the same type of cake story. I think once we did a cake for all seasons, so it was different cakes for your seasons. We didn't want to repeat that, but we still wanted to present an idea of showing wonderful wedding cakes, but what was our theme, what was our idea? You know, we repeat ourself, yes, but we always give it a new twist, a new angle.

BOB GARFIELD: It's all about angles. The editorial process at these magazines is about 10 percent journalism, and 90 percent geometry.

WOMAN: Everybody's always doing look great naked. I really like the idea of feel great naked. Fifty Reasons to Love Your Body.

BOB GARFIELD: Fifty reasons to love your body. Splendid idea! Next month -- Fifty One Reasons to Love Your Body. [THEME MUSIC UP & UNDER]

BOB GARFIELD:That's it for this week's show. On the Media was directed by Katya Rogers and produced by Janeen Price, Megan Ryan and Tony Field, and edited by Brooke. Dylan Keefe is our technical director, and Rob Christiansen our engineer; we had help from Derek John and editing help from Sharon Ball. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Arun Rath is our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts and MP3 downloads at onthemedia.org, and email us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media, from NPR. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. [MUSIC TAG]