In reading what the person said to you in regard to your questions, it seems to me that they don't want to get too specific out of the fear that it'd drive you away. I think it is with a good reason that it is so vague and I wouldn't invest too much in that. At the bare minimum, when running a magazine or newspaper, the management must know the costs to run it, personnel, beanies, etc. It kind of boggles my mind that they cannot tell you a salary range or how many pages a publication is usually at.
You might want to take a look at a local magazine that caters to travel in the local areas with info on restaurants, special features of that city, etc. Every state and/or locale has such magazine that could be right up your alley.
