But we were also trying to move issues on the newsstand. We were giving pages to women’s health and life issues that prestige media outlets edited by men didn’t give a shit about. On the other hand, you can be much more thoughtful about which details are absolutely necessary to tell a story, and which ones push it over into the kind of breathless, salacious journalism that cares some, but maybe not so much, about raising awareness and cares much more about how fast readers will text the link to a friend, or take to Twitter to say, “Can you fucking believe this shit!” During the 15 years I wrote for women’s magazines, I walked that line almost every day. How can you raise awareness without good story telling? That therapist didn’t understand, I decided getting all of these details was just good journalism. I found the details my editor wanted and filled in all the TKs. One goal of that story was to raise awareness. Photo by API / Contributor via Getty Images “But if you include lots of details about what people with bulimia do, you might be teaching some of your readers how to have it.” “I know the goal of this story is to raise awareness,” she told me. I think it was when I started asking my source to help with the “more details TK” that she balked. (Where bulimics go to be sad, I guess?) And I can remember scrolling past said model’s face in the article layout as I looked for the spots my editor had marked TK, which in magazine speak means “to come.” Statistic TK. 1 I cannot remember the expert’s name, but I can remember the art for the story: A somber, but very blond, tan and thin model, standing inexplicably on a beach. One day in 2004, when I was a wee editorial assistant at Seventeen Magazine, it was my job to call an eating disorder therapist quoted in a story we were running about bulimia to ask a few follow-up questions. Take care of yourself and please click links with the utmost caution. Content warning: We’re going to talk about anti-fatness, eating disorders, and weight loss drugs today.
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