• Newsweek to raise cover price in an attempt to have readers continue to dump the print version for the free online edition.

• Ariel Foxman secures gig as editor-at-large for Time Inc. First assginment: Trolling the halls of InStyle.

• Wet get it, we get it: Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn is the new Michael’s.

• Watch as WWD recycles much of our October Fabian Basabe story.

• VNU continues the holiday cheer with five sacked at the Hollywood Reporter.

• NYT needs cash, turns to high priced rental market, looks to lease more floors in new building.

• Al Franken ditching Air America Radio. Or AAR ditched Al. Something like that.

After a somewhat significant failure of his Office Pirates launch, the site’s founding editor Mark Golin has been re-shuffled within Time Inc. Today, People.com announced that Golin will join the site, earning the highly prestigious title of “editor.” He will work right along side Martha Nelson (People Group editor) to “oversee online editorial operations and site development.”

Golin has a pretty packed resume, which includes a mix of both magazine and Web experience. And, no, not all of those publications had the same fate as Office Pirates.

But Golin made his real mark in magazines. After a decade at Rodale, he moved to Hearst Magazines’ Cosmopolitan as deputy editor. In 1998, he became the editor in chief of Dennis Publishing’s Maxim, where he led the U.S. laddie invasion with his sharp wit. He also was editor in chief of Condé Nast’s Details.

He joins another former mag EIC, Angela Matusik (the second to occupy now defunct Budget Living’s top spot) on the site’s masthead. And if we wait just a few more months, maybe someone there will be able to secure Ariel Foxman a job.

Office Pirates/Maxim Vet Golin Named People.com Editor [Lisa Granatstein, Mediaweek]

Why aren’t there magazines for teenage boys? Well, for one, we have Maxim. And Maxim online. Not to mention “the general consensus” according to Jeff Bercovici that teen guys aren’t interested in anything besides videogames or skateboarding.

On Eat the Press today, Melissa Lafsky chats up the likes of Atoosa Rubenstein, David Zinczenko, and Maxim entertainment editor Eric Gillin. Their shared combined perspectives seem to shed some light on the reasons why advertisers hold tightly to their “teen boy” reach via Internet and television mantra. Which, for us anyway, sheds light on the viability potential for AOL’s latest launch, Lat34.com.

AOL has launched Lat34.com, a Web site centered around action sports such as surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding, through a partnership with the production company Fusion Entertainment.

Entertaining, action-like (read “videogames”), skateboarding and surfing via the Internet? And just when we thought Ariel Foxman (read “the male Atoosa”) had a shot at finding his next gig.

TEENAGE WASTELAND: Where Are The Mags for Teenage Boys? [Melissa Lafsky, Eat the Press]
AOL Launches Lat34.com [Mike Shields, Mediaweek]

Doug Dechert went to Richard Johnson’s wedding. We went to Dechert’s party last night.

Please, please don’t ask us why. Maybe it’s because we hadn’t seen Doug since he spent an entire dinner hitting on our editor at Veronda last summer. Or, maybe because we were so high off our Ariel Foxman sighting we thought we were invincible to the horrors of Lloyd Grove and Jared Paul Stern’s overage stringers.

Still, in the name of gossiping, we are publicly shaming ourselves and admitting our attendance at this pathetic showing — mainly so that we can publicly shame Baird Jones, who happens to be a huge Dechert groupie.

It actually pained us to see the poor guy, sporting his usual Yankee cap and 1980’s Sherlock Holmes business suit, dancing awkwardly to Sugar Ray. If you don’t get the picture, this still rendition of the clash might help. Jump at your own risk.

CONTINUED »

• Always beware of a guy in a fedora who threatens to bite off your boob, pee in your soup, and thinks that Page Six is the mafia.

• And magazines who lie to you about being able to see Eva Longoria from space.

• Maybe if you’re lucky, Si Newhouse will buy you an apartment. But, if you suck at running a magazine, you’ll probably only get a one bedroom apartment.

• Elle Girl’s life gets taken before she even has a chance to become a woman. But, she will live on like the real ladies — on the internet.

• From inside AMI, the real story of Celebrity Living’s demise. Even Bonnie Fuller stopped by to shake hands.

• And for once, the only magazine that nobody cares about, with the most stalked about celebrity of the month.

Sir Harold Evans is a pretty important guy. You should know who he is … mostly because he’s a sir, is married to Tina Brown, holds some disdain for Mort Zuckerman, and (as insinuated by our previous theory) doesn’t need to go to the Dominican Republic for his tea.

Currently, Evans’ job as editor-at-large for Felix Dennis is likely being threatened. (Surely James Brady couldn’t have known that when he filed his online article praising this fab position.)

Before Stuff and Maxim, though, Sir Evans did spend some time at Conde Nast. As did his wife. And they just love Si Newhouse. Well, come on, he bought them a house.

Si Newhouse? “I love Si. With Si’s backing and resources, you can’t go wrong unless you’re a bloody fool.”

And when Sir Herold is not having tea in his Sutton Place apartment, he’s schooling Ariel Foxman and explaining why the Cargo editor only got a one-bedroom.

Sir Harry Never Rests [James Brady, Forbes]

We knew they had an “only the best for Condes” policy over at 4 Times Square. But (call us naive) we had no idea Si Newhouse was actually buying his employees $4 million apartments. More or less. Hey, these folks can’t be entertaining the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Marc Jacobs in a Brooklyn loft.

As today’s Observer reports, the top Conde editors must live in top Manhattan properties. It all began in the 90s, when Uncle Si reportedly picked up the mortgage on Tina Brown’s $4 million four bedroom pad on East 57th St. But why stop there?

Over 20 Condé Nast executives, editors and even a couple of writers have either been loaned money directly by the company (sometimes listed as the overarching corporation, Advance Publications) or had the media giant secure mortgages in order to purchase properties, according to city records.

A brief rundown of what exactly it costs Conde Nast to hold on to their socialite editors … and their socialite statuses.

Anna Wintour: Her and her husband took out a $200,000 mortgage on their Greenwich Village townhouse — “with Condé Nast lending the money.”

Graydon Carter: Him and his first wife Cynthia bought their four story Bank St. townhouse in 1999. “Shortly thereafter, the couple took out a $3.841 million mortgage, with Advance lending the money.

David Remnick : He signed a contract for a West 86th Street duplex listed at $3.25 million. “Advance secured the loan.”

Jim Nelson: After taking over as EIC of GQ, “Nelson moved into a co-op apartment in a Chelsea brownstone, with Advance serving as the secured party.”

Oh, and they threw Ariel Foxman a couple thou for his “oversized” one-bedroom spread. We wonder if Si is going to by his favorite Fairstepchild Brandon Holley a downtown crashpad, of if it’s only the “real” Conde editors who get houses?

It’s Condo Nast: Newhouse Keeps Editors Housed [Michael Calderone, New York Observer]

A Cargo consultation is not complete without the Sunday Styles section weighing in. Eric Wilson takes a break from covering Brokeback trends and beards to cover the recently defunct men’s style staple.

What pissed people off about Cargo anyway? Not that it was “gay” but that it was so in the closet about it? Not that they were treating their readers like wimpy girly men, but they stopped short of putting unicorns and rainbows on the stickers? Likely a little bit of both. But, of course it isn’t the reader’s fault. Their weak minds are just controlled by the monster which is media.

Which is exactly, of course, who EIC Ariel Foxman blames. The media, who just can’t wrap their minds around straight men shopping and getting manicures, took Cargo down one preconceived notion at a time.

Cargo covered cars and technology with the same zeal as styling paste and printed underwear, and this, Mr. Foxman believes, made some people uncomfortable.

“It really irked people in the media that they couldn’t put a label on Cargo,” he said, “as if all technology or geeky magazines had to be straight and all fashion magazines had to be gay, which is a preposterous way for media to look at other media.”

Ok, so maybe the media does enforce that stereotype. But when the only straight guys in your office work in the IT department, it’s just so hard not to.

O.K., Fellas, Let’s Shop. Fellas? Fellas? [Eric Wilson, New York Times]

• Naomi Campbell loses her jeans, her mind, and her maid all in one day. And makes us fear the future of mobile technology.

• Our super hip readers take a break from watching VH1 Celebrity Countdown to tell us, (uh, hellllooo) that Leonardo DiCaprio is not dating Lindsay Lohan. That’s the last time we spread unsubstantiated gossip. Oh, who are we kidding?

• The happiest news of all? No, not Cargo’s demise. Jill Carroll is free at last.

• Whitney Houston gives Natasha Lyonne a run for her drug money.

• Uh, little Hilton bro needs to close his mouth before Michael Jackson finds him.

• And yes, because it couldn’t compete with Consumer Reports, didn’t know if it was gay or straight, and had schizophrenia, Conde Nast laid Cargo to rest.

Plenty of people in the media industry are throwing their hands up in the air and crying “why, Cargo? Why?” Ariel Foxman, defunct EIC, is definitely one of them.

However, it seems that like its closing, there are plenty of things Foxman didn’t seem to fully understand about the magazine he was running. The publication had, at the very least, some identity and personality issues.

“It was never a men’s shopping magazine,” Mr. Foxman said. (Each issue included a sheet of page-marking stickers reading “BUY” or “SAVE.”) “It was a magazine that helped guys figure out the things they would need.” (September 2005: “These jeans reverse from a dark blue rinse on one side to a light gray-blue on the other.”) “It never identified with metrosexuals.” (November 2005: “I would love to find a cleaner, less painful depilation process—and maybe sugaring will do the trick.”)

The mag couldn’t decide which way to flip its collar, who to put on the cover, or what its sexual orientation was. A “lifestyle magazine” was specifically geared towards a life full of shopping and grooming and spending — an obviously “modern” “ahead if its time” life.

Yes, in twenty to fifty years, guys who get sugar scrubs, have 15 types of hair gel, and download every DMX song ever made will be in the total majority. We can’t friggin’ wait.

Cargo–Ergo Sum: I Shop, Therefore I Am So Bummed! [Gabriel Sherman, New York Observer]

Yesterday afternoon, word hit the internet at full speed that Cargo, Conde Nast’s shopping magazine for men, was terminated.

Its closing marks the third in a series of magalogs for men that have bitten the glossy dust — despite their Swiss army knives and cable knit sweaters, Fairchild’s Vitals and Ziff Davis Media’s Sync also faced a similar fate.

Perhaps marking the end of the metrosexual reader who picks out his clothes with little sticky tabs, when the plug was pulled on Cargo, it took down household name Ariel Foxman with it. Foxman had a rough stint over at Conde; he didn’t want to put women on Cargo’s cover, he didn’t play the GQ/Details, ‘gay or straight?’ game, and perhaps most detrimental, he pissed of the big guns.

According to one insider, in December, Foxman showed up late to a holiday cocktail party Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. held for the company’s editors — a faux pas no employee who felt himself to be on the hot seat would presumably make.

Ouch. (Remember that folks, when you go to apply for your job at 4 Times Square.) Still, as naive as Foxman may have been, it’s not easy selling magazines when your entire demographic is acting like a bunch of gruppie dumb shits.

Dumping Cargo [Jeff Bercovici, Sara James, WWD]
Condé Nast to Close Cargo Magazine [New York Times, AP]

Earlier: Jiblets: Cargo dies, GQ slotted to play step-daddy

It’s on the runways, celebs are sporting it, and even mag editors like Ariel Foxman are all about it. The look, says the New York Times, is beards. And while Eric Wilson tries to look for deeper meaning, he eventually shoots down any attempt to explain the psychology behind these “bushy” chins.

This one from top Tuleh designer Bryan Bradley, however, is not too scruffy.

“This is some sort of reaction to men who look scrubbed, shaved, plucked and waxed,” said the designer Bryan Bradley, who stepped onto the runway after his Tuleh presentation looking like a renegade from the John Bartlett show, at which more than half the models wore beards: untidy ones that scaled a spectrum from wiry to ratty to shabby to fully bushy.

“It’s less ‘little boy,’ ” Mr. Bradley said. “For a while men have looked too much like Boy Scouts going off to day camp.”

Ah, yes. Pedophilia is in the eye of the beholder. Actually, what’s more shocking, is that for the first time in weeks, Thursday Styles didn’t chalk up a trend to Brokeback Mountain.

Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol [Eric Wilson, New York Times]

It’s been quite some time – nine months, in fact – since we crashed in on Cargo magazine’s online forums, where conversation ranges from stripe width on button downs to pondering whether wearing sandals have sexual overtones. While our conversations about Cargo are more likely to drift into debating Ariel Foxman’s homoerotic appeal, we’re still concerned with what fashion-concious Conde Nast readers have on their minds. Which brings us to this post, titled ” Fuzzy Balls Tshirt.”

Does anyone remember seeing the “Tennis Players have Fuzzy Balls” tshirt in a spring/summer issue last year? Im trying to find the shirt and been unsuccessful. Hopefully I can come across it.

If someone would please CC the Foxman on this, he might finally realize posts like these can mean one thing only: readers aren’t using those handy sticker tabs to mark pages containing tech goodies they want to buy — they’re playing pin the Cargo sticker tab on daddy’s cub.

Bonus: The Fuzzy Balls tee can actually be found at Vulgaritees, which may or may not have ripped off the idea.

Fuzzy Balls Tshirt [Cargo]
Forum: Talk Cargo [Cargo]
Related: All Crashing Cargo Forum coverage

• Ariel Foxman remains safely in charge at Cargo, but that’s probably more Andy Roddick’s doing (his issue rocketed single copy sales to 89,000) than Foxman’s talent. Or his hair.

• The New York Sun calling the New York Times a tabloid makes us giggle a little. Okay, a lot.

• Bonnie Fuller is looking at her own Devil Wears Prada now that former Star West Coast bureau chief Brenda You is set to release her first novel Blood Red Carpet. If there’s nothing we like more than thinly veiled industry tell-alls, it’s thinly veiled industry tell-alls with “before & after” titles.

• MSNBC truly had a captive audience last night. Among the passengers on JetBlue Flight 292 were three NBC staffers, who were able to watch their situation live on, uh, MSNBC thanks to in-flight DirecTV. And wouldn’t you know: Alison Stewart nabbed the get with an interview when the plane landed.

• The good news? A Current Affair has been canceled. The bad news? It’s being replaced by Geraldo at Large.

• Rupert Murdoch is moving ahead with plans to launch a business news channel while CNBC is moving ahead with stalled ratings.

• The New York Times hoped to start charging you for access to its op-ed columnists via TimesSelect on Monday, but some smarty found a way around it. Well, for 24 hours.

• Slashing 500 jobs across its newspaper holdings isn’t keeping the New York Times from earning a “credit watch with negative implications” rating from S&P, but surely the new revenue from TimesSelect will rescue the Gray Lady.

Were we not faithful members of the Jewish community, we might have never read Robert Leiter’s magalog article in The Jewish Exponent. And had we never read Leiter’s piece, we may have never been tipped off to Ariel Foxman’s sex-fueled agenda taking place at Cargo.

In its earliest incarnations, the magazine was described as “The New Buyer’s Guide for Men”; one year later, it’s “Your Money Well Spent.” The July/August issue has also been designated “The Summer Fun Issue.” Inside, we’re told, will be lots of “Sex, Sand & Sea.”

Indeed, Cargo’s taken a bit of a turn, adopting the sense of being a guide to a man’s sex life and sensibilities. “Turn Her On!” screams a headline. “866 Women Reveal the Secrets to Catching Their Eye.”

There’s been a change in the cover design as well. They used to show guys surrounded by lots of buyable merchandise; a few months ago, women began intruding on the covers. You could see a foot or leg poking into the scene. Now there’s a woman in a bikini draped across a guy’s midriff. She’s even in the forefront; he’s pushed into the background.

Which is kind of amusing, since most of the men reading Cargo would prefer to push her out of the way for a better look at his abs, despite what reader survey data might suggest.

BONUS: Did you miss Conde Nast’s hottest editor on The Early Show? Check in for some “cool summer looks for men.”