Newsstand

The Rev. Peter Kreitler thought little of it when the first magazine with a flag on it arrived in the mail all those years ago. It was, after all, one of those novelty gifts, a Yachting magazine published in the month and year of Kreitler's birth--July 1942. The fact that there was an American flag on the cover didn't really register as unusual. The war was on. It was a patriotic time. So he tucked the magazine away in his files and forgot about it.

Dow Jones & Co. said it will raise the newsstand price for its flagship Wall Street Journal to $1 from 75 cents beginning April 2, the first rate increase since 1990. The Journal's annual $175 subscription price, set in January 1997, will be unaffected. The increase would generate about $8.8 million in revenue the rest of this year, assuming newsstand sales are maintained.

The Los Angeles Times, one of the last major metropolitan dailies selling for a quarter, announced Tuesday it is doubling its single-copy price in Southern California to 50 cents, effective March 5. "This pricing action is in response to higher newsprint costs and general inflation, and reflects the high quality of The Times' journalism," said Times Publisher and President John Puerner. The Times, acquired last year by Chicago-based Tribune Co., raised the single-copy price to 25 cents in 1979.

CNN is bracing for a round of staff cuts and reorganization this week, but in the meantime, some of its future programming plans are becoming clearer. One casualty will be "CNN Newsstand," a newsmagazine launched in 1998 to make use of resources at the sister Time Inc. magazines, including Time and Fortune, and to draw viewers during periods when there was no breaking news.

Only a century or so ago, Victorian women's magazines advised readers to dedicate their lives to husband and hearth. Peterson's magazine, one of several 19th century publications devoted to the fairer sex, published a poem whose lines include: "She sits a queen upon her throne / And beautifies her quiet home--For woman lives for love alone!" A few things have changed, to put it mildly.

In today's rapidly changing and busy world, it's hard to keep up with the latest news and tips for raising your children. But the good news is that there's a plethora of parenthood magazines out there to help guide you, some of which are free. * Here are 10 of the best: Parents * Issues a year: 12 * Established: 1926 * Circulation: 1.8 million * Cover price: $2.

Into a glut of television newsmagazines that seem to multiply like grasshoppers in an El Nino spring comes four more from an organization best known for live, breaking news. CNN's "NewsStand," a collaboration between the Time Warner-owned cable news outlet and three of Time Warner's print publications--Time, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly--premieres Sunday with promises of meaty journalism that matches the tone, standards and prestige of its three traditional magazine counterparts.

A local developer unveiled plans this week for a giant video billboard to entertain passersby on the Sunset Strip--the first such sign to hit the popular night-life area since the Billboard Live music club closed its doors and took down its signature Sony Jumbotron signs late last year.

On the morning of Jan. 23, the residents of Johannesburg, South Africa, woke up to this headline in the newspaper the Star: "I'm No Sex Pest, Says Clinton." Normally, it would have taken weeks for us in the U.S. to see this headline. That's how long it takes the Star, as well as other foreign papers not normally distributed in this country, to reach the major libraries that carry an extensive selection of offshore newspapers. But now, hundreds of foreign dailies have sites on the World Wide Web.