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FROM THE FRONTLINES :: STEVE COHN
Jackie Leo, "Child's" First Editor, Recalls The 1986 Beginning...
 She is much better known for her subsequent career--from Family Circle editor-in-chief (1987-1994) to her current editor-in-chief's stint (since September 2001) at Reader's Digest. In Leo's personal Before They Became Stars chapter, she was a Modern Bride staffer in the mid-1980s, when she came up with the idea for Child. "Having a large number of high-income working couples was a new phenomenon back then," she says . "I was a new parent myself [she and husband/U.S. News & World Report columnist John Leo's daughter Alex is now in her 20s], and questions that I had personally--like hiring a nanny, setting up 'play dates,' and choosing the right private school--applied to many."
So, with Mary Anne Sommers (ex-Harper's Bazaar) being her business partner and financial support from the Italian conglomerate that also launched Taxi (the European-styled fashion magazine that had a brief run in the 1980s), Child launched in September 1986. Caught the attention of then-New York Times Magazine Group president Bill Kerr (retired as Meredith Corp. chairman/ceo in July 2006), who bought the magazine and quickly moved Leo to FC. Second Child editor was now-Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Kate White, and Leo lauds her Child work of the final editor-in-chief Miriam Arond (see below). Ironically, it was the "1980s" Chuck Townsend, who, as FC publisher and later NYTMG president after Kerr moved to Meredith, was integral to Child's early success. But the "2000s" Townsend as Condé ast president/ceo (since January 2004) was arguably integral to its failure by backing the December 2005 launch of rival Cookie, which contributed to Child's closure (see page 3). Ditto Mary Berner (now Leo's boss, as Reader's Digest Association ceo), who was directly in charge of Cookie under her Fairchild Publications aegis (until January 2006). And Eva Dillon, to whom Leo now directly reports as RD president/group publisher, was Cookie founding vp/publisher. More Steve Cohn
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