Gossip Queen Fuller's Advice on Drawing Young Readers

By: Seth Sutel, AP Business Writer (AP) Fuller to Editors: Punch it up! That was the message Bonnie Fuller, an undisputed master of glossy celebrity magazines, delivered to a group of newspaper editors who had asked her in to talk about how to reach younger readers.

"Celebrities are fun," Fuller told a lunch meeting Monday of the board of the Associated Press Managing Editors. "That really is my core philosophy in covering celebrities: Have fun. ... It's entertainment, no more or less."

Fuller, who is currently making over the Star from a supermarket tabloid to a mass-market magazine, joked that since Gwyneth Paltrow has accused her of being "the devil," she would share some secrets of the "dark arts."

Fuller said she surrounded herself with staffers who reflected the kind of readership she wanted to reach, and kept in touch with their interests by watching the same movies, TV shows and listening to the same music they did.

Fuller, 47, said she tried to avoid getting "trapped" in "boomer culture."

"If you're trying to reach another generation you just can't let yourself stay only in that box," Fuller said. "If you want to publish for the next generations you have to accept that graphics and format are extremely important in relating to them."

Fuller is best known for turning US Weekly from a sleepy magazine into a hot-selling newsstand title with bang-up graphics, vivid colors and juicy gossip about celebrities.

Fuller dismissed the notion that American culture had taken on a more serious tone since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She noted that author David Halberstam had predicted that America may never go back to caring about "pointless, inane trifles."

"He missed something very important," Fuller said after a short pause. "And he certainly missed Paris Hilton."

Ken Sands, managing editor of online and new media for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., called Fuller's remarks "another wake-up call" for newspapers. "We need them, and from people who can do what we can't -- increase circulation," Sands said.

Fuller's gift for turning celebrity journalism into gold at the newsstand has made her one of the most sought-after editors in the magazine business. In addition to US Weekly, she also clocked circulation gains as the editor of Cosmopolitan and later Glamour.

Asked what newspaper editors might do to increase circulation, Fuller said she had learned earlier in her career to strive for a "hierarchy" on the page. With many newspapers, she said, "sometimes it's hard to tell which story I should be reading first."

Fuller, who is known as a demanding boss, made the presentation on a day when she was the subject of a particularly glaring item of gossip herself.

Page Six of the New York Post, the most influential gossip column in New York, quoted an unnamed former staffer of Fuller's as telling Vanity Fair magazine about how some disgruntled editorial assistants befouled a meal she had ordered sent home to her in a car.

The Associated Press Managing Editors is an organization of U.S. newspaper editors founded in the 1930s to give feedback to The Associated Press.