Fair Game: Bailout Risk, Far Beyond the Banks

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Covering the Runway From Beyond New York

In the heart of New York Fashion Week, it is not just fashion journalists reporting or posting on Twitter steps from the runway about the latest looks.

On the Web pages of Style.com, a division of Fairchild Fashion Media, the Paris D.J. Michel Gaubert shared a photo of Diane von Furstenberg brainstorming the tunes for her show. (“Diane is in an urban oasis mood.”) Paula Bezerra de Mello, a publicist for Hotel Fasano in Rio de Janeiro, designed by Philippe Starck, landed an interview with the Brazilian designer Oskar Metsavaht. And Anne Christine Persson, development director for Copenhagen Fashion Week, offered a glimpse of the “under the boardwalk” inspired designs that fashion watchers should expect from the Danish designer Louise Amstrup, who is based in London.

This global take on New York Fashion Week coverage is part of Fairchild’s plans to build on the fashion-hungry audience it has been drawing to its Web site in 2013 from every country in the world, except Guinea-Bissau, Naura, Tuvalu and Western Sahara. The numbers only seem to grow during fashion weeks. In February 2013, Style.com received 153 million page views from around the world. The United States, which remains the leading market, brought in 73 million views during that period.

Executives at Style.com were surprised at just how much attention they were drawing from countries like India (1.3 million page views), South Korea (4.3 million) and Ukraine (1.8 million). Gina Sanders, Fairchild’s chief executive, added that on a recent trip to Beijing, a boutique owner who did not know her background started to talk to her about how frequently he was following the site.

“In the past, the fashion industry very much had borders that were dictated by geography and nationality,” Ms. Sanders said. “Technology has become a great connector.”

While Fairchild has long had a global presence with bureaus in London, Milan, Paris and Tokyo, Style.com editors decided to take a different approach to expansion. Dirk Standen, the site’s editor in chief, wanted to reach fashion fans not just from New York, Paris and Milan. He was also skeptical that opening more bureaus would capture that global interest.

“That felt very labor intensive and an old media approach,” said Mr. Standen of a bureau system. “We knew we had an existing global audience. At the same time, I felt there was all of this energy coming from all of these cities around the world beyond the main fashion capitals.”

In July, Style.com introduced a global network of 62 unpaid fashion contributors from 33 cities to chronicle their fashion choices and include a few celebrity contributors, like Courtney Love and Kylie Minogue. With New York Fashion Week, the global contributions seem to be coming full circle. Ms. de Mello, a graduate of Brown University, who has written for Style.com about boutiques in Ipanema and a local chef’s detox diet, said her friends were going to Style.com because of all the designers there with close ties to Brazil, like Narciso Rodriguez and Marc Jacobs.

So far, these global dispatches seem to be resonating with readers. The site recorded a 32 percent jump in page views in the first two days of Fashion Week compared to the same time last year.

Letters: Co-Payments and Beyond

To the Editor:

In his Economic View column, “When a Co-Pay Gets in the Way” (Aug. 11), Sendhil Mullainathan argued for the elimination of co-payments for drugs with proven benefits for the recipients. I agree, but even more can be done to improve the odds that patients will always take their medications over the long term.

In addition to the co-pay barrier, other factors can reduce adherence to medication. Receiving just one- or three-month supplies of chronic or maintenance mediations can cause such lapses. And the cost and inconvenience of an office visit, simply to arrange for a new annual prescription, can be burdensome as well. A patient may have to miss work just to have such an appointment.

Perhaps a longer supply of medication, along with the availability of a nurse for consultation by phone, could further drive long-term adherence to proven drugs.

JAMES P. REICHMANN

Marietta, Ga., Aug. 11

•

To the Editor:

Co-payments for medications are only part of the problem. Last year, my health plan started charging $40 for any specialist and $200 for an emergency room visit, even with a premium of close to $800 a month. That adds to the stress of deciding when to go to specialists or the emergency room, even when it’s medically necessary.

If a basic level of free health care were funded by all taxpayers, we could solve many problems and change the economic landscape of this country. We wouldn’t have the stress of worrying about how to afford to stay alive — and the nation’s job creators would no longer have to subsidize employees’ health care costs.

SUSAN A. MCGREGOR

North Kingstown, R.I., Aug. 11

Letters for Sunday Business may be sent to sunbiz@nytimes.com.

U.S. Standards for School Snacks Move Beyond Cafeteria to Fight Obesity

“Parents and schools work hard to give our youngsters the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong, and providing healthy options through school cafeterias, vending machines and snack bars will support their great efforts,” Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said in a statement.

The new rules were required under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was passed by Congress in 2010 with broad bipartisan support. The law, supported by Michelle Obama and drafted with an unusual level of cooperation between nutrition advocates and the food industry, required the Agriculture Department to set nutritional standards for all foods sold in schools.

The department had previously set the standards for fats, sugars and sodium in meals prepared in schools, and the new rules bring other foods under similar standards. When schools open in the fall of 2014, vending machines will have to be stocked with things like whole wheat crackers, granola bars and dried fruits, instead of M&Ms, Cheese Nips and gummy bears.

“By teaching and modeling healthy eating habits to children in school, these rules will encourage better eating habits over a lifetime,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which worked on the legislation. “They mean we aren’t teaching nutrition in the classroom and then undercutting what we’re teaching when kids eat in the cafeteria or buy food from the school vending machines.”

Health advocates are taking the same approach to curb the consumption of fatty, sugary and salty foods that they did to reduce smoking: educating children in the hopes that they will grow up healthier and perhaps pass along healthy eating behavior to their parents.

Ms. Wootan said she was pleased that the rules would prevent the sale of sugary sports drinks like Gatorade in high schools. The drinks have already been withdrawn from elementary and middle schools, but Ms. Wootan said teenagers mistakenly think such drinks are healthier than sodas. “All they are is a sugary drink with added salt,” she said.

Some Republicans were critical of the new rules. Representative Lee Terry, a Republican from Nebraska, tweeted his opposition using the hashtag “nannystate” and writing “RIP tater tots.” Schools could probably sell Tater Tots, a hash-brown potato nugget made by Ore-Ida, if they were baked instead of fried.

Schools and big food and beverage companies have been trying to improve the nutritional quality of food sold in educational institutions for some time. The American Beverage Association, which lobbies on behalf of the beverage makers, noted that its members had already reduced the calories in drinks that are shipped to schools by 90 percent.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents big food companies, applauded the new rules, though it said it would continue to encourage the Agriculture Department to phase them in gradually.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 28, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the agriculture secretary. He is Tom Vilsack, not Vilsak.