“Do you think that it would be better to stop publishing!?”
In 1986, feminist icon and founding publisher of Ms. Magazine Gloria Steinem caught heat for the magazine’s dependence on cigarette advertising revenue, even as the prevalence of lung cancer in women soared. During a testy exchange with a caller on a radio show who challenged Steinem on taking cigarette money, she retorted, “Do you think that it would be better to stop publishing!?” With a handful of exceptions, such as Good Housekeeping, magazines directed at women courted tobacco companies for more cigarette ads. In 1989, Grace Mirabella, former editor-in-chief of VOGUE Magazine and wife of famed lung cancer surgeon William Cahan of Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, started a new magazine, Mirabella. Shortly after the magazine appeared, she announced that it would not longer accept cigarette advertising.