12/85Estimated number of underground newspapers and magazines published in Poland: 250

Lawrence Weschler (New York City)

3/85Average number of newspapers and magazines to which a Soviet family subscribes: 6

TASS

    To which an American family subscribes: 3.3

Newspaper Advertising Bureau (New York City)/Magazine Publisher’s Association (New York City)/U.S. Census Bureau

6/85Copies of Bride’s bought by the magazine’s average reader: 7

Bride’s Magazine (New York City)

3/87Percentage of French men who say they would like to see Princess Stephanie pose nude in a magazine: 28

Brulé Ville Associés (Paris)

5/87Farming magazines published in 1974: 209

Standard Rate and Data Service (Wilmette Ill.)

    Today: 393

Standard Rate and Data Service (Wilmette Ill.)

9/88Rank of Princess Di, Bruce Willis, and Michael J. Fox in number of magazine cover appearances last year: 1,2,3

Advertising Age (New York City)

1/89Number of Americans who have a lifetime subscription to Reader’s Digest: 43,000

Reader’s Digest (Pleasantville, N.Y.)

8/89Percentage change, from 1987 to 1988, in the number of new AIDS cases: +8

Centers for Disease Control (Atlanta)

    Percentage change, from 1987 to 1988, in the number of newspaper and magazine articles about AIDS: -36

Centers for Disease Control (Atlanta)

8/89Pages of ads in Vanity Fair this year bought by advertisers who have been written about in the magazine: 103

Daniel Lazare, Columbia Journalism Review (N.Y.C.)/Harper’s research

11/90Percentage of Wigwag magazine readers who say they know someone who knows James Taylor: 15

Wigwag (N.Y.C.)

4/90Number of the 11 magazine articles about lottery winners published in 1989 that ran in Jet magazine: 11

Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, H. W. Wilson Co. (N.Y.C.)

6/90Number of the ten largest environmental magazines that are printed on recycled paper: 3

Harper’s research

8/92Number of subscribers to Surfer Magazine who live in Saudi Arabia: 2

Surfer Magazine (Dana Point, Calif.)

1/93Percentage of New Yorker articles since Tina Brown became editor whose first sentence includes a person’s name: 70

Harper’s research

4/93Percentage change, since 1991, in the circulation of Women & Guns Magazine: +50

Women & Guns Magazine (Buffalo, N.Y.)

2/94Issues of Mad the magazine will give Prince Charles this year for winning its Alfred E. Neuman Look-Alike Contest: 12

Mad (N.Y.C.)

3/94Percentage of the Parents magazine editorial staff that is childless: 55

Parents (N.Y.C.)

5/94Percentage of all magazines on U.S. newsstands last year that went unsold: 57

Capell Circulation Report (N.Y.C.)

9/94Average cost of raising a child, through college, according to Town and Country magazine: $816,303

Town and Country (N.Y.C.)/U.S. Census Bureau

    Number of years it would take an average working American to earn this amount: 31

Town and Country (N.Y.C.)/U.S. Census Bureau

6/95Copies of the premier issue of the Russian-language edition of Cosmopolitan sold in Russia last summer: 60,000

Cosmopolitan (Moscow)

9/95Percentage change since 1973 in the number of full-time photographers employed by National Geographic: -87

National Geographic Society (Washington)

1/96Number of homemade sex videos in Penthouse magazine’s “Amateur” series: 2

Penthouse magazine (New York)

1/96Number of classes in popular culture taught at the Smithsonian last summer by the PR director of People magazine: 6

Smithsonian Associates Program (Washington)

11/96Year in which Barbara Bush was named “First Lady of the Century” by Outlaw Biker magazine: 1995

Outlaw Biker (Hoboken, N.J.)

3/96Percentage of British women who believe there is “too much sex” in women’s magazines: 46

CIA MediaLab (London)

6/96Number of last year’s newsweekly magazine covers featuring women who are not princesses, murderers, or models: 0

Forbes Media Critic (N.Y.C.)

7/96Ratio of the circulation of Weight Watchers Magazine to that of the New York Times: 1:1

The New York Times/Weight Watchers Magazine (N.Y.C.)

7/96Chances that a cartoon in The New Yorker’s Women’s Issue was drawn by a man: 5 in 6

Harper’s research

9/96Number of the top seven editors at Vibe, a hip-hop magazine, who are white: 5

Vibe (N.Y.C.)

1/97Years after Naomi Campbell said “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” that she posed for a 10-page fur spread in W magazine: 2

PETA (Norfolk, Va.)/Harper’s research

10/97Rounds by which each gun’s magazine capacity will have to be reduced to conform with U.S. law: 20

Violence Policy Center (Washington)

11/97Factor by which Forbes magazine’s estimate of the net worth of Russia’s security chief exceeds his own: 75,000

Forbes (N.Y.C.)/Kommersant-Daily (Moscow)

11/97Number of months former senator Pat Schroeder has been a contributing editor of Glamour: 10

Patricia Schroeder (Washington)

3/97Chance that a magazine sold at a U.S. Army, Navy, or Air Force base is an adult magazine: 1 in 5

Army & Air Force Exchange (Dallas)/Navy Exchange Service (Virginia Beach, Va.)

6/97Number of years the editor of Divorce Magazine spent working at Wedding Bells magazine: 3

Wedding Bells (Toronto)

6/97Chance that a romance cited by People magazine last year as among the century’s “greatest love stories” was adulterous: 1 in 2

People magazine (N.Y.C)

10/98Average price of one of the 200 cabins reserved for a Caribbean cruise next December by The Nation magazine: $2,800

The Cruise Authority (Marietta, Ga.)/International Transport Workers’ Federation (Rotterdam, Holland)

    Estimated average hourly earnings of each of the cruise ship’s Indonesian crew members: $2.47

The Cruise Authority (Marietta, Ga.)/International Transport Workers’ Federation (Rotterdam, Holland)

2/98Factor by which male readership of Sports Illustrated increases for the swimsuit edition: 2

Sports Illustrated (N.Y.C.)

    Factor by which female readership does: 3

Sports Illustrated (N.Y.C.)

7/98Months before the 1929 stock market crash that Forbes magazine noted the “heroic scale” of U.S. economic growth: 4

Forbes (N.Y.C.)

1/99Percentage of the fall 1998 issue of Britain’s The Ecologist magazine devoted to an investigation of Monsanto: 95

The Ecologist (London)

    Percentage of the issue’s entire press run immediately pulped by the printer, for fear of breaking British libel laws: 100

The Ecologist (London)

3/99Amount Fortune magazine estimates that Michael Jordan NBA career has contributed to the U.S. economy: $10,000,000,000

Fortune (N.Y.C.)

4/99Ratio of Americans who say they trust TV news magazines to those who say they trust print news magazines: 2:1

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

    Ratio of those who say they trust local TV news to those who say they trust C-Span: 2:1

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

1/00Hours required to assemble a prefabricated nuclear-bomb shelter, according to a 1961 Life magazine cover story: 4

Jonas and Nissenson, Going, Going, Gone

3/00Percentage of the senior editorial staff of Talk magazine that has resigned since the magazine’s debut last summer: 26

Talk (N.Y.C.)

6/00Number of the 155 U.S. magazines published in 1850 that are published today: 13

Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines 1741-1865, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass.)

6/00Hours of cooking required to remove the “toxins” from tomatoes, according to an 1860 women’s magazine: 3

Historical Atlas of the United States, National Geographic Society (Washington)

7/02Number of years that a member of the Council on Foreign Relations has authored Parade magazine’s celebrity-gossip column: 11

Parade (N.Y.C.)

7/02Number of subscribers to Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s email magazine Lionheart: 2,200,000

Embassy of Japan (Washington)

4/03Rank of Kim Jong Il and the Saudi royal family among the world’s worst dictators, according to Parade magazine: 1,2

Parade, 2/16/03

11/04Weight in pounds of a “millionaire” seeking “Cinderella” in a New York magazine personal ad last summer: 444

New York magazine (N.Y.C.)

9/05Minimum number of American universities with their own student-run erotic magazine: 6

Harper’s research

7/07Amount paid on eBay in May for an unsalaried summer internship at GQ magazine: $30,200

GQ (N.Y.C.)

    Estimated value of the “style/grooming makeover” the intern will receive: $1,500

GQ (N.Y.C.)

11/08Date on which Playgirl magazine will become an online-only publication: 11/18/08

Playgirl (N.Y.C.)