Scandal! Mag sticks to its knitting

Woman's Weekly 1944.

For a magazine with a gossipy reputation, NZ Woman's Weekly has a surprisingly demure history.

It was the "scandal of the century".

Eighty years ago, champion galloper Phar Lap was found snorting out blood in his San Francisco stables. The gelding had just taken North America by storm, coming from behind to win the US$50,000 Agua Caliente Handicap.

But within hours of Phar Lap being discovered, bloated and in pain, he was dead. Here and in Australia, the papers reported rumours that the horse had been poisoned. There was talk of mafia gangsters lacing his feed with arsenic. Yes, it was a fair dinkum scandal.

That same year, with somewhat less fanfare, the New Zealand Woman's Weekly was born. It was the first of a breed of women's magazines that are now perceived as the sharp-toothed terriers of scandal. If celebrities marry, the women's mags are there. If marriages break up, the women's mags descend like a ravening pack.

So, back in 1932, how did founding Weekly editor Audrey Argall cover the scandal of the century in the pages of her new magazine? Well, she didn't. She published Depression-era knitting patterns and recipes for chicken in aspic instead. "Public opinion," she wrote, "is fastidious and conservative in its taste."
She knew readers might secretly savour juicy gossip or scandal, but she needed to serve up something more substantial to keep them coming back. And, sure enough, they have kept coming back-for 80 years now.

The Weekly has made a tradition of treading with some delicacy around human weaknesses and peccadilloes. Yes, the magazine "does" scandal on its front page-but not with quite the same glee as some of its competitors.

During World War II, the magazine fastidiously documented the hundreds of romances between New Zealand women and the US servicemen who were based here - and helpfully advised how to move from "flirtation" to something more serious by swotting up on American cooking and clothing. One cover photo showed Hollywood sex kitten Rita Hayworth demurely serving up spaghetti and meatballs.

The social pages recorded engagements and marriages like that of "luscious brunette" Peggy Hillman to Captain Arthur Schade of the US Marine Corps - yet on p1, "Editress" Hedda Dyson thundered against England's naval fleet for deserting New Zealand in its hour of need.

By 1964, the magazine was able to take some mischievous delight in The Beatles telling their audience to "shut up" but, really, little real naughtiness made the pages till the 1990s. It was then that the magazine waded into the scandal over Captain Mark Phillips cheating on HRH Princess Anne with a Kiwi horsewoman. The headline asked: "Mark Phillips . . . RUINED?"

In 1996 Wendyl Nissen, an aggressive young editor, was poached from the Australian spin-off Woman's Day . She brought with her chequebook journalism and a hunger for gossip and scandal. Radio's Pauline Gillespie and Grant Kereama, said to be going through marital troubles, were among those to feel the sharp end of Nissen's pen. Then she bought a tell-all interview and makeover with the Ingham twins, the shipgirls who jumped ship off north Queensland and survived shark and crocodile-infested waters.

"When the chequebook opened, celebrities came clamouring for it," says Nissen. "They won't like me saying it, but people were prepared to tell personal stories because there was a cheque in the mail.

"You just had to go out and get them drunk and that was that. You'd take the pre-signed contract in your handbag. My lunch bills were horrendous."

But the Weekly's loyal readers weren't keen on too much salacious stuff, as Nissen soon discovered. "They have always taken a very cautious line, and I had to learn to do the same."

Nowadays, aside from the odd tell all like Ali Mau and Karleen Edmonds' wedding plans, the Weekly's editor Sarah Stuart displays a touch of the decorum of her predecessors.

"Scandals are often about the really human moments in a celebrity's life, and I think everyone likes to see that even the great and the good muck up sometimes," Stuart admits.

"Royal scandals have always been great fodder for magazines [but] New Zealand scandals are a bit different, I think - we are a small, fair-minded community and one reason the Weekly doesn't run paparazzi shots or salacious gossip is because our readers don't want it. There's a real sense of justice in heartland New Zealand and people don't like to see someone kicked when they're down."

Scandal may provide a fleeting diversion - but successive editors have learned their readers would prefer the magazine stick (quite literally) to its knitting.

And founding editor Audrey Argall was proved right, of course, in ignoring the Phar Lap scandal. The racehorse was eventually found to have died of a bacterial disease.

It was the scandal of the century - until the next scandal came along.