Creative Loafing’s death spiral: More newspapers, less news [Sunday Paper]
See, opening up this article you might think that it will be a blurb about how there's no more time to dick around and wait for genius to strike. If you're going to try to make money in print, you might as well dive in because the industry certainly isn't going to get any better while you feng shui your room.
To which we say: close, but no Freudian cigar.
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Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore is being celebrated with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Magazine Publishers of America, because if anyone deserves an industry pat on the back, it's the woman who's currently cutting 600 jobs at her company right now. What, was Joanne Lipman too busy scrambling to save the shards of her career to accept an award?
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Jeff Bercovici grabbed a spare moment of Bill Kristol's time today as he did the rounds for The IFC Media Project (he's a part of that? Well, that's not promising). Somehow the Portfolio blogger was able to smooth talk the conservative writer into discussing his contract with New York Times: a position, rumors say, that is up for grabs since he's gotten on one too many editors bad sides.
Hey Details men's fashion stylists, you are terrifying. But also, hysterical. This, btw, is how you get more traffic on your website, and get all those tasty ad dollars. It's called, having a sense of humor about your site.
Are you listening, Joanne Lipman? Or was this what you were trying to accomplish with the Dov Charney cover?
Someone out there has it in for Portfolio's editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman. Ever since that giant misstep with putting American Apparel founder Dov Charney on the cover of a business magazine at a time when the entire world's business was collapsing, it's all been downhill for the former editor of The Wall Street Journal.
And now, in trying to come up with some interesting ideas that could save the Conde Nast title from itself, the best Jon Friedman could come up with is a list that starts out "Fire Joanne Lipman" but then inexplicably ends with "Give Portfolio a break in the gossip columns."
Well, lets compromise. We'll stop writing about Portfolio's imminent demise as soon as it stops self-destructing, Lipman or no. At this point, it's hard to blame her entirely for an industry-wide crisis, but there is always as sacrificial cow when it comes to heads rolling, and unfortunately being an editor-in-chief puts you right in the firing line for releasing stupid soundbites to the press.
The highly anticipated editors-in-chief luncheon that happens for the Condé Nast staff at the Four Seasons every year has just been…*gasp*…canceled. Mon dieu!
Says a spokesperson, "We are going to forgo it this year. We think it is in keeping with the times." Um, right, but whatever happened to the magazine industry's "Let them eat cake?" Guess it wouldn't look right with the fall of Men's Vogue and the scale backs at Portfolio.
Poor Si! Poor Keith Kelly who is kept in business at the Post writing about high profile/closed door media events like this. And poor anyone who thought they would be able to tell where they stand with the Newhouse clan, which apparently determines the seating arrangements at the Christmas bash.
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Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg cares about New York's media scene. As well he should: he owns most of it. So you would think that Mike's ideas on how to fix the current state of the industry's tailspin would sound a little bit more informed, and less like something pulled out of a desperate last bid by the same companies he's trying to save:
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The layoff list from Si Newhouse's company is finally being trickled down to the peons whose jobs are actually being lost. But! Just like at Condé Nast's other victim this week, Men's Vogue, even the higher ups are getting kicked to the curb. Including Ken Wells, Portfolio editor and Pulitzer finalist. Also penner of the recent The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina, for which he was thrown a book party by his (now ex) employers earlier this week. Surprise!
Now this is truly bizarre: While it makes sense that publisher Condé Nast would cut down the frequency of Portfolio and take their necessary 5% of flesh out of the magazine, why is Portfolio.com being "severely scaled back" when common sense (and trend reports) would say it's the only part of the operation that still has a chance to become lucrative?
Sure, cuts are being made everywhere, but going from a staff of 12 to a staff of 3 (or so says the rumor mill) is not letting go five percent, it's trimming 75% of the online workforce.
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Look, nobody here is claiming to be a math genius, but what sense does it make to take a magazine that publishes monthly, and then trim it down by only two issues a year? Which is what Condé Nast, in their recent upheaval today, has decided to do with Portfolio, their business mag that lately hasn't been keeping very good track of business. So now Portfolio will be published 10 months out of the year, so they can continue "readjusting for the economic times.” Gosh, by their October cover, you'd figure the economy was doing just fine.
So what happens to those two other issues? They've been given to Men's Vogue, which recently lost all of their other publishing dates.
"I have to say I think I'd be handicapped if I was linked to a magazine," she said at one point. And later, she elaborated, "In my month's experience editing The Daily Beast, I am so excited by it, so enthralled by it, so kind of invigorated by it that it does make me realize the great opportunities of this digital world. And I have to say I would hate to have to be in the magazine world right now. It's a really tough time to be a magazine editor, trying to compete, in a sense with that pace and that exhilaration and the multimedia nature [of the web]."
-Tina Brown, exercising the old ghosts of her Talk magazine during the EconWomen's conference
JOSSIP IN-DEPTH — We pay a lot of lip service here to the idea that magazines and newspapers are a dying breed these days. But how can you not? It's no longer just a conceptual exercise, like "Oh, when the Internet really takes off and everyone buys a Kindle there will be no more need for paper journalism."
Since the stock markets have tanked, and as the automotive industry began stalling thanks to rising fuel prices and less discretionary income, meaning fewer big ad deals from GM and Chrysler, which means fewer ads in mags, yada yada yada, it's become increasingly apparent the push toward the future of magazines and papers wasn't going to be a technological development, but a financial one.
And no, it's not been great so far. Ad sales are down, overall readership is down, layoffs are up, and in some cases, publications are straight up folding. So goodbye, New York Sun, Radar, CosmoGIRL!, and 02138! Meanwhile, online news aggregators are popping up (Daily Beast!) and flourishing (Huffington Post!).
Nowadays, you'll have better luck starting a blog about the magazine industry's implosion than you would have trying to start up a title in today's climate.
So what are the glossies that are currently in danger? Here's our own suicide watch, and what drove these mags to the brink of extinction (besides the obvious lack of tasty ad dollars):
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Sure, everyone Hearst might be cutting down left and right, and even the most renowned blogs are feeling the sting of a not-so-great period of American history. But Arianna-wannabe Tina Brown? Couldn't be more pleased with the way things are going:
There's such a depression in the mainstream-media world, whether it's publishing or network television or magazines, and everybody's kind of glum, and feeling they're kind of being outpaced. It's all about budget cuts. From my point of view and our point of view here, it's exciting to be in a situation where you feel the only way to go is up, that it's about finding an audience fast, and catering to that audience fast. I love being able to adapt.
Guess that's why the front page of her online aggregator/original content provider is looking so cheery today:
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So how is Portfolio doing in a climate where every one of their biggest advertisers are seeing their net worth plummeting? Just dandy, thank you:
We’ve had more meetings,” said the magazine’s editor, Joanne Lipman. “And one of the things we did is we made a list of every writer we had and what stories they’re working on, and asked how their pieces are relevant, and has the landscape changed in a way to reshape their stories.”
Unfortunately, meetings aren't notoriously helpful in cleaning up the budget, or cutting staffers from the bill. And if Portfolio is having all these "relevancy" talks, someone please explain why Dov Charney was on the cover of their business magazine two weeks after the biggest meltdown in U.S. economy?
Is Portfolio just turning a blind eye and hoping all the bad news goes away? Can they really be that naive?
Sure they can:
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The one question on everybody's lips: Since when has American Apparel founder Dov Charney ever looked so respectable?
Perhaps someone should also ask Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman why she decided to put the notorious playboy/sleazebag who reinvented the Lycra bodysuit on the cover of their November issue when the whole world is collapsing and their magazine could stand to profit off a little coverage (like Financial Times!).
Really? More profiles of NBC stars? Portfolio is the latest at the gate with this 4,100-word doozy on Jeff Zucker. We have not read the article, which some might argue makes us unqualified to comment on it. But here's what we're going to guess is in the piece: A history of Zucker's rise to the top of the peacock, how he's handling the Olympics, how GE really really isn't planning on selling off its television unit, and some things about what the future holds ("But Zucker does not dwell on the past"). Throw in an anecdote about him running 'for North Miami High School student-body president with the campaign slogan, “The little man with big ideas,”' and you can shrink wrap this one and put it on store shelves. [Portfolio]
We will miss Portfolio's napkin math sessions when the magazine eventually closes. Last month, they calculated the net worth of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," supposedly the most profitable song ever recorded, which earned an estimated $572 million. Now, they've moved on to other pop culture fare: Project Runway. Just how much is the fashion reality show franchise worth? Well, The Weinstein Company's new deal with Lifetime pits the show at $150 million over the next five years. But if they were to sell the show? $243.5 million — the insurance policy on Heidi Klum's legs not included.
An interesting thing is happening inside the walls of 4 Times Square, and we like to call it cannibalism. Times two.
The first act of cannibalism is taking place between Vanity Fair and Portfolio, the anemic Conde Nast business magazine that wouldn't mind putting an A-lister on its cover — say, Will Smith? — and dissecting his Hollywood profit margins. Except doing so would infringe upon VF's territory, eating up Graydon Carter's editorial base.
And the second act of cannibalism?
That would be when Graydon Carter wields his power inside Tinseltown to keep Joanne Lipman and her charges from ever locking down an A-list cover. CONTINUED »
Nightclub impresario and chess champ Noah Tepperberg puts down his BlackBerry for long enough to mince words with Portfolio's Lloyd Grove, who's gone from reporting on the antics of celebrity life in short form to reporting on the antics of celebrity life in long form.
Tepperberg, seen here with biz partner Jason Strauss and an unidentified blonde, is, of course, the co-owner of Marquee and a lead at Strategic Group, the special events and marketing giant that's also in the business of celebrity wrangling. (He was also featured in Bar Mitzvah Disco.)
The common masses will blame him for what nightlife has become: velvet ropes and bottle service (just banned in Boston!). The privileged set will celebrate him, also, for what nightlife has become: more exclusive, more parties. And for the uninitiated, he will explain the difference — why there is still a line down the street to get into Marquee, and why you're probably standing in it instead of inside, on a banquette. CONTINUED »
Portfolio managing editor Jacob Lewis may have finally calmed things down at the magazine. Since his September arrival, that revolving door known as the 17th floor has been swinging less rapidly of late. "There’s so much less drama," insists one staffer. Funny, because our records suggest otherwise. [NYO]
Editorial Director
