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Zillions

Charlotte Baecher is, among other things, the editor of Zillions, a kids magazine published by Consumer Reports (itself published by the Consumers Union). As you may imagine, Zillions's mission is to teach kids about various consumer issues and the media; sorta like the spinach of kids' magazines. While it's no Mad, Zillions does a decent job keeping kids awake while explaining the deal with spiral binders.

Baecher's been with the Consumer's Union education department for ages, apparently (I forgot to ask). In 1990 she collaborated on a report called Selling America's Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90s. Selling was followed up in 1995 with Captive Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids at School, a pretty handy overview of the commercial school scene (well worth your $3 from the Consumer's Union, 101 Truman Ave., Yonkers, NY 10703-1057). Subscriptions to Zillions are likewise recommended to young ones (ages 7-11 or so), are $16 from Zillions, Subscriptions Dept., P.O. Box 51777, Boulder, CO 80323-1777.

The following interview was conducted by telephone in December 1996. -- CM

Stay Free!: Zillions evolved out of Penny Power, right? How has it evolved over time?
Charlotte Baecher: Penny Power started in 1980. Originally we wanted it to be a classroom magazine but that didn't work out. The basic concept was that kids need some information to become good critical thinkers and see thru a lot of the hype that was being directed at them. Over the years we learned about kids as consumers, too. They didn't just want information, they wanted to have a role in shaping it. And they wanted to see other kids questioning... We started surveying them in 1986 and that helped us evaluate how good a job we were doing.

Has the balance between product reviews and ad criticism changed over time? The thing I like about Zillions is that it isn't just a Consumer Reports for kids.
Actually, we used to be called Consumer Reports for Kids but now we say it's for kids from Consumer Reports because you're perfectly right--we don't assume that kids are out buying lots of things and that they need to know which brand is best. They need something more basic.

How do you decide what to review?
We started surveying kids in 1986 and that helped us evaluate how good a job we were doing. Kids love to read about fast food, sneakers, jeans, kid's allowances, how to earn money... then there are issues that we think are important for kids to pay attention to: smoking, political advertising . . .

When you review toys, do you get stuff for free?
No, in that way we're like Consumer Reports. We buy everything.

Do you ever worry about it being too positive? Seems like you'd have to be especially careful with kids 'cause if they don't actually read and understand you, it could come across as advocating a product.
Just covering something at all, whether it's positive or not, can have the effect of publicizing it. It's something we're constantly juggling. When we do our annual toy taste, one of the main criteria that we use in selecting toys are choosing those that are most likely to be heavily advertised to kids. So we're assuming kids are going to be seeing TV commercials for these things and, rather than publicizing, we're helping them see the reality versus the fantasy... The thing about the reviews is, we always have kids do the reviews. because it's the evaluations through the kid's eye that have credibility to our audience. It's not just the information about the product that's important, it's the role models of the kids in our actual testing.

How is it distributed? I was looking for it here in New York and couldn't find it. Is it tied in with an school literacy programs or is there any way for kids to hear about it outside of their parents reading Consumer Reports?
We're in a limited number of bookstores. The main way is from direct mail advertising to parents.

Have you had an instances of a company trying to interfere with what you're publishing?
From time to time we've had companies dislike what we've said but that's it. We don't publish something unless we've done extensive research so if we're going to say something doesn't work, we triple-check it...

Do you ever get criticized for not being critical enough? For not being anti-TV or whatever?
Not really. We're not antibusiness, we just want them to understand what's going on out there so they're equipped to handle it.

Kids a lot of times see things differently from you. Especially in that instance of dealing with ads for a political candidate, depending on the intensity of support in the family for one of the candidate. It can be a very important person to these kids and it's hard to separate that you're criticizing the ad, not the person. We did a spoof on licensed cereals--Batman, Barbie cereals--and then we did a spoof about what new licensed cereals were coming up and one of the ones we were kidding about was New Pigs on the Block... and we got letters from kids "that's not funny they didn't do anything to you!"

There was something in there about a contest saying we need more boys. Do you get more letters from girls?
Our readership is pretty evenly split between boys and girls but probably 53 percent boys but the majority of the letters come from girls; the girls also read more (from our readership surveys). I've talked to other editors of other kid's magazines and it's kind of across the board, it's their experience too. Girls enter more contests.