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print is dead
The Passing Of The Old Guard
The people who run some of the (once) grandest institutions in print media are tumbling from their perches like so many fallen leaves, cast off in the face of a new season. It's not always their fault. Print is slowly wasting away, and as companies shrink, they cut off their own heads in a desperate bid to prove that they're doing something to address the problem. Not fair, but that's capitalism for you. After the jump, a list of recently deposed members of the old guard; mourn their passing, briefly. More »
breaking
Hearst Blows Up
Magazine groups are changing their management with all the abandon of the fractious Meade family in Ugly Betty. The latest casualty: dorky Victor Ganzi, who's stepping down as chief exec of Hearst with no successor lined up. (That's always a bad sign.) Magazine bosses must be feeling particularly insecure today. The rumors about Cosmopolitan publisher Hearst in the Wall Street Journal come the day rival magazine group Hachette dropped its boss of nine years. That leaves S.I. Newhouse's Condé Nast an island of stability—as long as the forgiving 80-year-old publishing magnate remains in charge. (Have the backstory on the sudden Hearst reshuffle? Email!) Update: At least Hearst isn't pretending this was in any way planned. "The reason for his resignation was irreconcilable policy differences with the Board of Trustees about the future direction of the company." And Meredith—which publishes a range of tepid lifestyle magazines such as More—just dropped its editorial director.
obits
Hachette's Jack Kliger
Surprise, surprise. As we've been predicting for months, the chief exec of Hachette is stepping down. Charming former modelizer Jack Kliger bamboozled the press with talk of a multimedia revolution after taking over the French-owned magazine group in 1999; but the web strategy never moved beyond the stage of rhetoric. After nine years, he leaves behind him a motley group of hobbyist titles and Elle magazine—with neither critical mass in print nor much of a future online.
feuds
Is Hachette's "Digital Dunce" Really A Dignified Bedeviler Of Dilettantes?
Two commenters argued today that our coverage of the brewing civil war inside Hachette was way too harsh on digital VP Todd Anderman, who we dubbed a "digital dunce." Anderman, you'll recall, is said to have offended the sensibilities of deputies Joe Berean and Keith Pollock with a mind-numbingly-long series of reorganizations and content aggregation strategies. The case against Anderman as an all-thumbs manager was only cemented by his accidental big-screen projection, at a staff meeting, of some instant-messenger venting of work frustrations to his wife. But our comments say the fault for the disaster at Hachette lies not with Anderman but with fashion primadonnas like Zee and his allies, including former store-salesman Pollock. "Todd's reputation in this business is stellar and for you to put such a nasty hit piece like this is deplorable," one wrote. Well, his reputation isn't universally "stellar," judging from the fallout from Berean and Pollock's resignation, reported in our original post. But every feud has two sides, and far be it from us to ignore either. The pro-Anderman comments are reproduced after the jump. More »
magazines
Elle's Digital Dunce
After the severe bloodletting at Hachette's websites last month, one would expect remaining survivors at Elle.com, ElleGirl.com and Premiere.com might be grateful. Not so. In fact, there's been something of an uprising against digital vice president Todd Anderman (left), a clumsy transplant from Maxim Digital. As Women's Wear Daily is reporting, two of Anderman's top underlings have resigned: fashion director Joe Berean and Keith Pollock, executive editor of Elle.com and ElleGirl.com. Left unsaid? Pollock is the shopboy installed by Elle creative director Joe Zee, with whom he is said to be cozy, so his disgruntled exit from Anderman's employ will not soon be forgotten. Nor will the purported reason, a series of Anderman-instigated messes stretching back to an embarrassing incident involving the VP's laptop and a digital projector. More »
hachette
Joe Zee's Fabulous European Vacation
Elle creative director Joe Zee is popular among colleagues. "I seriously don't know anyone who doesn't love Joe: he was the best thing that could have happened for morale there." No wonder he's so beloved: the free-spending Zee took an additional five friends and colleagues to the Paris and Milan ready-to-wear shows this year—included among them his rumored paramour, a former shop girl Keith Pollock. The bill for Zee's grand European tour—probably over $500,000—comes at an uncomfortable time. Elle publisher Hachette just slashed its web staff and is giving up office space at its Midtown headquarters; and grumbly bean counters are beginning to focus on the master stylist's extravagance. "The costs are out of control, and the boyfriend who is said to be reporting on fashion shoots is really at a Four Seasons getting a massage on the company tab," writes the cost-conscious tipster. Pollock—a former salesman whom Zee had placed at Elle's website—was spared the recent online cuts. More »
Elle's Expensive Creative Director
One expense line at Hachette that's been spared the French-owned magazine group's increasingly desperate cost-cutting: the travel and boyfriend-employing expenditure of Elle creative director Joe Zee. Embittered peons: gossip away.
One expense line at Hachette that's been spared the French-owned magazine group's increasingly desperate cost-cutting: the travel and boyfriend-employing expenditure of Elle creative director Joe Zee. Embittered peons: gossip away.
magazines
Out Comes The Hatchet At Hachette
When Jack Kliger took over Elle and Hachette's other US titles in 1999, he established himself as one of the magazine industry's few multimedia visionaries. The former Conde Nast publisher pushed Hachette's content onto EchoStar's interactive TV platform; Hachette's Car and Driver teamed up with the USA Network to produce a reality show spin-off of Cannonball Run, the cross-country car-race movie. And, when Hachette closed Elle Girl and Premiere magazines but kept their websites going, Kliger the charmer spun the cost-cutting exercise as an embrace of online media. So how's that going? Try utter disaster. We've been getting reports all day that the group has laid off almost its entire online staff. And here's one good reason: even Hachette's most successful online properties have the reach of a mid-sized blog, according to previously undisclosed web stats. (Oh, yes, and Hachette's Elle is about to lose its cherished role on Project Runway, the fashion-industry reality show.) If the future of magazines is some multimedia magic, as Kliger has been saying for a decade, Hachette has not much of a future; nor the Hachette boss himself. More »
rumormonger
First Signs Of Media Recession?
- Word is that 15 people have been laid off from Elle.com and other websites at French-owned magazine group, Hachette. We're working on a longer story about the travails of Elle and the other Hachette titles. Backstory to nick@gawker.com.
- That excellent video website, Super Deluxe, is being shut down. Sorry, it's being folded into another Turner web property, the site for Adult Swim. Nick Douglas is working on the story.
- More bad news for indie film makers: Hollywood studio Warner Brothers is closing down two boutique distributors. [Defamer]
