On the first birthday of real-life weekly Pick Me Up, editor June
Smith- Sheppard has insisted there will be “no knee-jerk reactions”
from the magazine in response to the new entries into the crowded
market.
NatMags launched Real People earlier this month and News
International’s Love It! is due early next month, both launches
triggered by Pick Me Up’s ability to grow the sector’s readership in
the past year.
Smith-Sheppard, former editor of sister title Chat
at IPC, said: “If a launch offers something new and exciting then
readers will buy it, and good for them.
We’re just going to focus on the readers.”
Love
It! editor Karen Pasquali Jones claimed last week that Pick Me Up had
moved away from its original brief to target a younger audience,
describing its pages as “full of grey-haired grannies”.
But
Smith-Sheppard said: “All I can say is that editor’s picture of me
isn’t flattering, but I’m not grey-haired and I’m not a granny.”
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