The next BSME deep-dive is with a giant of the magazine editing world – our reigning Mark Boxer Award winner, Terri White. She recently stepped down from editing Empire after a stellar career shaping some of the biggest magazines in the UK and US, and joins us to discuss what she has learned along the way.
What I learned over two decades in magazines: BSME lifetime achievement winner Terri White reflects on her career
The BSME held a webinar with Terri White this week, the latest in our In Conversation With… series where we profile the movers and shakers in the magazine universe. Terri is a giant of the publishing world, having edited some of the biggest titles in the UK and the US, including Empire, Time Out NY and Shortlist. Our 2022 chair Tim Pollard sat down with the reigning Mark Boxer lifetime achievement award winner in the glitzy Bob Bob Ricard restaurant in Soho, London. You can watch the interview back in our film above – and here are five edited highlights from the wide-ranging talk.
Editing mags is a calling for some
‘I was obsessed with magazines right from being a little girl,’ Terri recalled. ‘I would save my babysitting money, my newspaper round pocket money to buy Just 17, mainly, but also Sugar and Bliss… Anyone who knows me knows I didn’t have the perfect childhood. What magazines provided for me was an escape. A brilliant gang, being welcomed into a group of people like me. I found solidarity and companionship in the pages of these magazines. I was obsessed – I decided that I wanted to be a magazine editor from a young age.’
Great editors should know every last detail of their title
Colleagues who’ve worked with Terri describe an editor who was all over her brief. ‘She knew your job better than you did yourself,’ admitted one journalist. This was deliberate. ‘I am a bit of a control freak,’ she said. ‘A lot of editors are… I wanted a full understanding of the bigger picture, to understand marketing and subscriptions, so I could experience the service the readers were getting…. All editors need an understanding of this. You have to balance your core job of editing and keeping an eye on the bigger picture.’
A good editor should stay on a magazine for no more than eight years
When we asked Terri what the optimum time to spend in the editor’s chair was, she quickly identified that it shouldn’t be too short. Stay a year, and people will ask what went wrong. ‘And if a statement is released saying you’ve “left by mutual consent,” it means you’ve been fired!’ But after working on 11 magazines, Terri developed the acumen to know when it was time to move on, as she did after starting a family. ‘With Empire, I would have had another year, I think… eight is the maximum. You need an evolving perspective. There is a window you can do all you personally can. You can shift a magazine to a certain level and then you should hand it on to the next editor.’
The loneliness of editing
‘Editing can be quite lonely,’ Terri reckoned. ‘There are certain things you cannot talk about – conversations with management, conversations about people’s jobs and pay. As a section editor, you can go down the pub with other section editors and talk about work. You can’t easily do that as an editor.’
Buy magazines you love – or they’ll disappear
All magazines depend on their audiences, and Terri mulled over the departure of some brilliant products – stand-out titles such as movie mag Hotdog and men’s mag Jack. ‘If you genuinely love a magazine, and you can afford it, please buy it or subscribe,’ she implored. ‘The outpouring of love when these magazines close is ridiculous. If everyone who said how much they loved it, had actually engaged with it or bought it, we wouldn’t be having that conversation. We only survive if people pay for the product, in some shape or form.’
