Gawker: cathie black

USA Today Founder Al Neuharth Is "Mad Man," Says Hearst CEO

Maggie — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:23:43 EST

Where did Hearst president Cathie Black pick up her steely ways? Why from "mad man" USA Today founder Al Neuharth of course! (She said it, we didn't.) In a November interview at the 92 St. Y with New York Post gossip Liz Smith, Black dishes about being a career woman and her early days with Neuharth. One gem? Neuharth kept his employees alert by keeping the office temp at 55°. "All you could think about was how damn cold you were," Black says. Watching employees hobble around on frostbitten toes is fun times! Watch the video after the jump. [92YBlog]

Previously: Hearst CEO Cathie Black On Office Tears: "Get Over It"

Hearst CEO Cathie Black On Office Tears: "Get Over It."

Maggie — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:55:01 EST

Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black is a total hardass. "You suck it in if you're ever driven to tears at the office," she tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "Get over it." Yikes. (Not that we particularly disagree, but when we say it, it's a lot less terrifying. Probably because the only publishing corporation we preside over at present has to do with Christmas thank-you cards.) Black's the affable sort, though, no need to cower (though it's probably one of those unwritten office rules.) "I'm from Chicago. I have strong Midwestern values. I'm accessible," she says. Funny, she won't answer our calls. A little advice from her old pal Rupert Murdoch, with whom she worked at New York magazine? Don't hold meetings sitting down. "He told me, 'when I stand the meetings are shorter,' and I vividly remember that," Black says. Actually? That totally works.

Hearst President Cathie Black on the best...

abalk — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:53:30 EDT

Hearst President Cathie Black on the best way to fire people. (Answer: Never alone.) [WWD]

Atoosa Rubenstein: Res nullius

abalk2 — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:25:35 EST

There's a precious moment in James Brady's most recent media column for Forbes. Jim hits up Hearst prez Cathie Black's holiday party and rubs elbows with the twiterati, running into a few old friends in the process.

I attempted to scribble a few notes while balancing a glass of very decent wine and exchanging trade chat and gossip with editors, publishers, writers and more or less famous Manhattan folk (Tom and Meredith Brokaw are among the neighbors usually invited). And there was the tall, striking Atoosa Rubenstein of Seventeen magazine, who had just been sacked, but who was being enthusiastically kissed by (soon to be former) boss Cathie. "Atoosa!" I cried in my best Jesuit-tutored Latin, "quo vadis?" No, she didn't yet know what she'd be doing next but seemed to be less upset by her own fate than over the shuttering of East Hampton's The Blue Parrot, where on occasion we've enjoyed a margarita. I wished her well and went off to greet Helen Gurley Brown [rambles on endlessly]...

Read that one over again, because we're pretty sure it's the first and only time you're going to see someone speaking Latin to, or in connection with, the 'Toos. Still, nice to know she's just as concerned about the Main Street Mexican joints of the Hamptons as she is about the kids.

The Boss Entertains [Forbes]

Who Do You Think Is Older? The Media Edition, Cont'd.

Jesse — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:54:39 EST

Hearst Magazines chief Cathie Black in May 2004, at left, and at Wednesday night's MPA gala, at right.

[2004 photo by Getty Images. 2006 photo by Steve Friedman. Work by an unnamed but very skilled comestic surgeon, presumably on upper Park Avenue.]

Earlier: Whose Arthritis Keeps Them From Holding the Whip?