Danyel Smith, the editor of Vibe before it folded, is the new executive editor of The Root, Slate's black-focused site. So while the old editor of Vibe moves on to a thing partly founded by Henry Louis Gates, the new editor of Vibe comes from fat ass-featuring mag King. Not sure what that means, honestly.


A group of Chicago-area investors have offered $5 million in cash and the assumption of $20 mil in debt for the Chicago Sun-Times and the rest of the Sun-Times Media Group. The buyers say they'll "pump tens of millions of dollars into the company to try to shepherd it back to profitability," and eventually fail. Elsewhere in funky media ownership news, Businessweek reportedly has 93 potential buyers. Ninety of whom are just doing it to get a free look at the binder? We're guessing? Are there even 93 humans left on earth who really want to own a magazine? No, there are not. Even Tyra Banks is online only.


Cheers to the young thinkers of the student government at the University of Texas at Arlington, who are trying to pass a measure to make the college paper go online-only. Here's how to decide: Does the print version turn a profit? If not, kill it. See also: this.


DC media elites are uniting as one in a power wedding of convenience (and love???)! Jeff DuFour, a gossip columnist for the Washington Examiner, got married to Jayne Sandman, the associate publisher of Capitol File magazine. Huh. Well we didn't say it was super-ultra elite or scandalous or anything.

Vibe magazine, which folded in June, is indeed coming back, online (with a quarterly print edition). The man you see at left is InterMedia founder Leo Hindery, Jr., the proud new owner of Vibe. And the owner of Soul Train! What a world.


Guess what happened last night? A magazine "Launch party" was held in Manhattan, for a new "magazine," printed on paper! It was reportedly a festive affair, and the last of its kind.


The creditors of the bankrupt Philly papers would like to bring them out of bankruptcy while canning the current management team, including Brian Tierney, who was somehow portrayed as the genius savior of Philly newspaperdom in the NYT mag last weekend, which, come on. I mean, hedge funds are not their savior either. But come on.


When the financial crisis struck, Fox Business Network worked overtime to reel in a staggering 81,000 viewers. Its most recent figures: 29,000 prime time viewers. A healthy way to look at it, though, is that nobody's ever watched Fox Business, so who cares?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The stories of Vibe's dead are trickling in. Here's a good/bad one: a photographer named David Anthony found out in the middle of a photo shoot for Vibe that the magazine was folding. He finished up, so as not to disappoint the subject, and will probably give the photos to the kid he was photographing. He seems like a nice guy so maybe toss him some work! Also The Root has a decent eulogy for the magazine.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The cheeky headline of Michael Wolff's column today: "Do You Use a Vibrator?" Quiet, Michael Wolff.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Fired Washington Post columnist/ blogger Dan Froomkin: "Not offending people is not a business model, you've got to have something to say." Right you are, Dan Froomkin. That's why you are more interesting than the Washington Post's editorial board.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A tipster tells us that yesterday's layoffs at Spin comprised about 20% of the entire staff—more than ten people. The magazine's freelancers were all dropped, an editorial assistant and some sales staffers were fired, and the art department and the website were hit hard, we hear. If you're a former staffer who'd like to gripe, email us.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Sunny newspaper news of the day: McClatchy could default on its debt by the end of the year, meaning the company could face bankruptcy; MediaNews is facing an ugly credit picture; and a financial planning trade association wrote a PR column on planning for retirement and managed to place it in several different papers across the country, under different bylines. PR hit of the week!

Jones created Vibe back in 1993 to showcase rap and R&B music in a voice that was younger and edgier than other publications existing at the time, hoping to appeal to young, urban music fans. In 2006 the magazine was purchased by the Wicks Media Group.

Jones spoke to Ebony Senior Editor Adrienne Samuels Gibbs this afternoon:

"I'm trying to buy my magazine back now," Jones told EbonyJet.com just moments ago during a telephone call to Jones' London abode. "They just messed my magazine all up, but I'm gonna get it back. You better believe it, I'm'a take it online because print and all that stuff is over."

Jones says that all publications must figure out how to live online. That's where he's going to take Vibe once he recovers from the death of his friend and protégé Michael Jackson.

"We gotta get into the 21st century you know," Jones said. " "Print and all that stuff is over, we gotta remember that. The Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Post Intelligencer. The Miami Herald. They're over the same way as the record business. We have got to get into this century."

While Jones sees an online-only presence as the future of VIBE, the magazine's Web site was already robust and, according to its CEO, profitable. Industry analysts say that without the burden of paying for the printed page, there might be a digital opportunity for VIBE if the brand's name and archives could be bought without having to assume the company's debt.

Under few circumstances would it be wise to ever bet against Quincy Jones and he certainly still seems to have an excellent grasp on things at age 76. Quincy Jones gets it, just as he always has.

Vibe Closes Down, Quincy Jones Wants It Back [Ebony]

Wikipedia sums up Vibe unexpectedly well:

The magazine owes its success to having a broader range of interests than its closest competitors The Source and XXL which focus more narrowly on rap music or the rock & pop-centric Rolling Stone and Spin. It also differs from the more staid Essence, Ebony or Jet publications by attracting younger readers of many ethnicities.

It was essentially the black version of Rolling Stone, and its readership grew broader as hip hop became pop music. (Kind of fitting that their last issue had Eminem on the cover). But Vibe hasn't been doing well for a while now; in February, the magazine cut its circulation and frequency, and salaries. Now the music industry is crumbling, and the magazine industry is crumbling, and the music magazine industry is really crumbling.

The recent dead include Radio and Records, Performing Songwriter, and Blender. Vibe probably had the most demographically diverse readership of any major music magazine. Now, the hip hop magazine world is ruled by the shaky Source and XXL, with strong online competition; the trade music sector is still topped by Billboard, incredibly shaky as well; the pop music mag sector is ruled by Rolling Stone, which is a shell of its former self; and Spin, Fader, Paste, and everyone else are just trying to protect their own audiences from the free, and many times much better, online intruders. Hard times.
[Jeff Bercovici at Daily Finance with the scoop.]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.UPDATE: We're waiting to hear back from Vibe ourselves, but their latest Twitter message pretty much confirms the worst.

UPDATE 2: Here are the statements from Vibe's editor, and a staff memo from the CEO. From editor Danyel Smith:

On behalf the VIBE CONTENT staff (the best in this business), it is with great sadness, and with heads held high, that we leave the building today. We were assigning and editing a Michael Jackson tribute issue when we got the news. It's a tragic week in overall, but as the doors of VIBE Media Group close, on the eve of the magazine's sixteenth anniversary, it's a sad day for music, for hip hop in particular, and for the millions of readers and users who have loved and who continue to love the VIBE brand. We thank you, we have served you with joy, pride and excellence, and we will miss you.

Danyel Smith
the former Chief Content Officer VIBE Media Group
& Editor in Chief, VIBE

Staff memo from Vibe Media CEO Steve Aaron:

Dear VIBE Team:

It is with a heavy heart that I share some tough news, VMG is closing down effective today, June 30th.

It's been an 16 incredible years since VIBE's inception. There are very few magazines with the richness of history and breadth of talented visionaries who created the powerful lens in which VIBE viewed and shaped urban music and culture.

Ever since I first set foot in this courageous company, I've regarded myself as incredibly fortunate to be be involved with this remarkable brand and group of individuals whose performance has never been nothing short of outstanding. We finished 2008 in an improved position versus the prior year, and accomplished so much, including:

* Editorial Awards
* Editorial transformation into content dept
* New Ad accounts being broken
* The Most Mag Launch
* Award winning re-design
* Profitable digital operation
* VIBE.com growth and improvements and programs such as Best Rapper Ever, #1 Stan, etc
* Mobile VIBE launch
* Micro-site development Mostmag.com to start off.
* V Sessions
* Improved PR coverage

Unfortunately, over the last several months, a confluence of events has obviously posed VMG to exceedingly serious challenges.

* The collapse of the capital markets has impacted us greatly. Over the past several months, we have actively pursued investment resources while working intensively with our bank to find a solution. But the deal market right now remains very poor and at the end of the day, the lack of investment resources to restructure the huge debt on our small company has made this outcome become a reality.
* The print advertising collapse hit VIBE hard, especially as key ad categories like automotive and fashion, which represented the bulk of our top 10 advertisers, have stopped advertising or gone out of business. It's also unfortunate that in a recession many companies reduce the multi-cultural campaigns. These facts, coupled with the continuing decline of the music industry not to mention the newsstand wholesaler consolidation in early 2009 all negatively impacted our business in a significant way.
* The relentless economic situation has depressed our growth initiatives on the digital front. To be clear, VMG has made significant improvement in this part of our business, but not at the accelerated pace required to offset the devastating effects of the most severe recession in our lifetime and the accompanying print losses.

I want to thank you all for your hard work and commitment, and for all of the adventures along the way. I'll miss this place a lot, but I'll miss you all and the magic you create.

Vibe will be remembered as a shockingly brilliant content company that everyone can be proud of and I look forward with great excitement to all of future endeavors you all pursue.

With great affection and respect –

Steve Aaron

former CEO of VIBE Media Group

1. Where else will you learn that Ice Cube shops? And "today was a good day" is the best caption ever. He didn't have to use his AK at the grocery store. Phew.

2. Dave Chappelle's kid looks like a tiny, part-Asian Dave Chappelle. Who knew?

3. There is nothing wrong with eye candy.

4. In In Touch, Serena Williams in a bikini was on the "They Could Use A Little Work" page. Here, she's celebrated as being "built for contact." As it should be.

5. Believe-it-or-not stories are always awesome and stranger than fiction.

6. "Dope or Nope" is our new favorite game.

7. Houston — who had a hit song in 2004 called "I Like That" — gouged out his own eye in 2005; may or may not have gone to a mental hospital in 2008 and is currently "on medication." Plus: Updates on R&B stars of the '90s, like the ladies of SWV, Adina "Freak Like Me" Howard and the guys from Next.

8. When your magazine brands itself as "the definitive voice of urban culture," book selections will include a story about a stripper; a novel detailing a "secret sorority" in which ladies have nicknames like "Ride Em High" and "Lick Em"; a "Vixen Manual" and the Sex Games Bible. Who needs Oprah's book club?


Earlier: New Kid On The Newsstand

So yeah, people are saying by the end of this year we'll have more jobs and money! Obviously that's straight up awesome, on the surface. But down deep we can't deny how The Recession has comforted us during moments of self-doubt, and how we might actually miss it, just a little, once it's gone. So I got some peeps to discuss how we should celebrate, offering us a blinkered light at the end of the tunnel, to the light at the end of the tunnel.

First up: Jozen Cummings is the Articles Editor for VIBE Magazine and VIBE.com. You can check out his blog here.

To many, CNN's news that the Great Recession will likely come to an end in 2009 is good news, but to me, it's bittersweet. Sure it's good to hear that things like the unemployment rate will quit rising like the sun, and things are getting back to "normal," but what people don't understand is "normal" is what got us in this mess in the first place, and I'm not entirely sure everyone has learned their lesson.

You see, I have always been broke and it gave me great comfort knowing the rest of the country was coming over to my side of the financial pool. For the past few months, I've been going to the club and it's been good to see more people hanging out by the bar buying one drink at a time like me, instead of popping bottles at a table in VIP. All of a sudden, my dates were no longer bugging me to take them to nice, expensive places, knowing that times were hard. Instead, they were cool with my offers of Netflix and Papa John's.

If you ask me, these hard times were just what we needed to reassess our values, get back to basics, and recognize that often times, life's simple pleasures really can't be bought. Hopefully, most of us will not forget these past few months but if we do, let us remember the words of the great Notorious B.I.G: "Mo' money, mo problems"

Where the true players at, throw your roleys considered opinions and emotions to the sky? I can get down with that. Next up: Melissa Lafsky, creator of Opinionistas.com, deputy web editor of Discover Magazine, and former editor of the New York Times' Freakonomics blog.

So the National Association for Business Economics is proclaiming that the recession will be over by the end of the year. Before we resume hemorrhaging our savings on panda-skin Jimmy Choos and gem-encrusted nail clippers, it's worth noting that the heavily pro-business NABE (former presidents include Alan Greenspan) didn't actually admit we were in a recession/downturn/Dickensian clusterfuck until the smack end of 2008.

Still, if the Great Recession does hightail it this year, I'll miss it. There's been something comforting about watching everything we've been taught to value liquefy into a river of shit. Plus when else will we get to see so many colossal hypocrites stripped down so publicly, like a daily Albee climax. The haute monde, the scions of capitalism — they were all exposed as liars or morons (or both), while everyone else was a deluded casualty. We got to watch, read, and blog while the system collapsed under its own hubris, flushing the white collars out of Midtown and Wall Street like a burst dam. There was nowhere to go but down. Sure took the pressure off.

(For the record, I haven't been cackling and stirring my cauldron while the six-figure types get the proverbial Prada loafer up the ass. But I'll admit to smiling once or twice while I munch my daily Triscuit rations.)

Of course, no one likes too much bad news (regardless of whether it's true), and this whole vacuum of delusion and incompetence is starting to grate on the nerves. Enter the shouts of redemption: The banks are lending! The consumers are consuming! The end is near! Sure, the stomach of capitalism is still churning out bile — but, as a well-preserved lawyer once informed me before slathering her face with embryonic stem cells, "Perception is reality." If we think the recession is gone, then who's to say it isnt! (Besides the people who may actually know, that is — but no one ever listens to them anyway.)

Word. This recession is over when WE say it is! So let's close this out with Abiola Abrams; TV personality, author of Dare, host of talk-variety show PlanetAbiola.com — and, oh yeah, recent cast member of VH1 reality show "Tough Love".

It's December 09. The recession is over kids. What are we gonna do today? Go to Disney World? Nope! Same thing we do everyday T.A.N., try to take over the world. Let's say a prayer of solace for retailers who won't have to con us into buying cheap crap by saying it will make us "recessionistas" or con us into buying expensive crap by calling $6,300 handbags "an investment."

Phew! Dust off your recessionary malaise, let's go shopping. Oh wait, let me call my immigrant parents first and tell them that maybe they can get their retirement back on with their 401Ks 75% thinner. And let me reassure the old people on my Harlem block as I prance to the new Starbucks on my corner not to worry because the bread line they were standing on before the recession will still be there. And luckily for me, as an author who has hosted shows for BET and is a recent VH1 reality show alum— and shameless promo whore (clearly)— that there's still the free clinic if I fall into a snafu because Simon and Schuster doesn't offer health insurance.

Thank the goddess that I learned how to live on a salary of fifteen bucks a year when I decided at 16 that I wanted to blab on TV for a living like Oprah, write books (kinda) like Jane Austen, and make art films like Spike Lee. It was already challenging to line up my next TV Correspondent gig and get published before the collapse. The main effect that the economy has had on my life is to totally depress everyone around me.

But some people do prosper during any downturn so without sarcasm. I ask, why not us? Now that I've racked up $100G in student loans and declared bankruptcy I can be introspective enough to say that wealth and abundance are states of mind. I continue to have real prosperity because I have solid friends and family, shopped at TJ Maxx before it was hip (um, it is hip, right?) and don't give a damn if my bag has someone else's name on it. So TAN, to celebrate the end of the recession, I think that I'll pimp myself out on a non-union reality show gig and allow them to edit out my tantrums and general spoiled bitchiness as the syrupy sweet "Miss Picky" in the name of empowerment and social experiments … Oh good-done? Rock on!

image:via

Playboy is tanking, because of internet porn, so they're considering "radical changes" for the magazine, "including price increases, a frequency reduction and lowering its rate base of 2.6 million." So fewer people will read it. We'll see how that works out. On the other hand, Vibe is launching a new tabloid where they can run those naked Rihanna pics if they want to. Free celebrity porn is the new paid anonymous person porn.


Metro, the free morning commuter papers that are a decent 10 minute read on the subway, as long as you didn't watch the news that morning, has sold its NYC, Boston, and Philly papers, and is closing its Spanish papers. It's now focusing on markets where print is still strong, like Bhutan.


Newspapers in the Czech Republic are opening up their own coffee shops, making reporters the socioeconomic equivalents of baristas. The future of journalism! And the Evening Standard in the UK is running a new ad campaign saying "Sorry" to its readers, for sucking. The future of journalism!


Some kids who wrote for their college papers later find the things they wrote to be embarrassing or professionally inconvenient. ZOMG. But the best part of this fake trendwatch is this little "anecdotal lede," as they say in the news business:

When Nickie Dobo wrote a column in 2003 for her college newspaper - The Daily Collegian at Pennsylvania State University - decrying the "hook-up culture" on the campus, she never expected it to resurface years later in an attack on her professional credibility.

But that's what happened when Ms. Dobo, now a reporter for the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, came under criticism by a white-supremacist group.

Budding journalists: Never forget that your article on your school's "hook-up culture" may be used by white supremacists to discredit you. Nobody said journalism is easy.

Vibe magazine is cutting its paid circulation 25%, reducing its frequency to 10 issues a year from 12, and merging its print and digital editorial operations, all in the magazine industry's latest response to the twin attacks by recession and new media.

Bingo. They did get that March issue out, though! The private equity firm that owns Vibe is also raising the subscription price, and "avoiding layoffs by adopting a four-day workweek accompanied by 10% to 15% pay cuts for its employees." Which sucks, but hey, it's better than a layoff, and times are tough everywhere these days. Vibe: yet another magazine that once turned me down for a job, which turned out to be not that bad of a thing in the end. [Ad Age]

UPDATE: Vibe just sent out a press release that—if you look carefully enough—contains all the information above, but mixed with lots of optimism, and under this headline:

VIBE MEDIA GROUP SHARPENS BUSINESS MODEL FOR TOMORROW'S MEDIA LANDSCAPE TO BETTER SERVE AUDIENCE AND MARKETERS
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT TRANSFORMS INTO CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
NEW PRINT TITLE, MOBILE PLATFORM AND ENHANCED VIBE TV OFFERINGS LAUNCH
SIX STAFF PROMOTIONS

Mmm. Flack-y.

Executives from the Wicks Group (Private Equity Owners) came to the office on Friday and met with CEO Steve Aaron and Publisher Edgar Hernandez. Things around the office are very tense.

The tipster says that more meetings are scheduled for this afternoon. And they say that the only ads Vibe has booked for the March issue are "Army, Carson Soft Sheen & Jamster"—not even a fifth of the usual number of ads.

If you have any more details or would like to confirm or deny, email us.

UPDATE: Well, they just sent out a press release about their March cover. Keyshia Cole! Interpret that as you will.

UPDATE 2: Vibe's PR firm sent this statement from Edgar Hernandez, Publisher of Vibe Media Group:

"Any reports that VIBE is having problems printing the upcoming March issue are untrue. In fact, VIBE is releasing its annual "Style" issue featuring Grammy nominated singer Keyshia Cole with two different covers which will hit newsstands everywhere on February 17th. We will also be issuing a press release within the next two weeks with news about VIBE's continued growth and expansion which includes new staff hires and promotions."

Not really. [The Fader, The Fader]

• The Real World season one, obviously. I mean, zeitgeisty to the extreme.
• He was a writer for Vibe magazine. All about pop culture things!
• He wrote a famous cover story about Tupac Shakur. You may have Tupac on one of your t-shirts!
• Headlining a Powell for Congress fundraiser tonight: Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. Beat that, bitch.
• He's the preferred candidate of AfroPunk skaters.
• "Mr. Powell’s campaign has advertised a mixtape they created featuring excerpts of his campaign speeches remixed on top of songs by Tupac, Talib Kweli, Mobb Deep and Kanye West."

Needless to say we're fuzzy on what Mr. Powell stands for politically, since we've already made our judgment in his favor based solely on his pop culture history. But he does support Barack Obama—the same guy that cool young people elsewhere support! Fuck you, Jesse Helms' ghost! We knew Kevin was in for big things way back when he was the most businesslike guy in the house:

• Oprah Winfrey endorses Barack Obama. Hell, if she can move copies of The Road she can probably sell anything. [NYT]
  
• Both the News and the Post have padded their circulation numbers. [AdAge]
  
• Jeff Bewkes, likely successor to Time Warner's Dick Parsons, sees a bright future for HBO, noting popularity of OnDemand. [B&C]
  
• HBO CEO Chris Albrecht on demand with Las Vegas PD after domestic violence incident following DeLaHoya/Mayweather bout. [LAT]
  

• At the Conrad Black trial, the government's star witness—Black's former right-hand man—prepares to testify. [NYP
  
• CNet reporters who were spied on by Hewlett-Packard have filed suit against the company. [NYT]
  
• Thomson's bid for Reuters raises regulatory concerns. [FT]
  
• Media buyers to mags: Give us issue-by-issue circulation guarantees or we take a hike. [AdAge]
  
• Vibe: Everybody's leaving. [WWD]
  
• Boston free daily starts printing material from bloggers. You get what you pay for, etc. [NYT]
  
• Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend: leisurewear model. [WWD]
  
• This newspaper industry: Giving it away for free is a bad idea. Except that people are starting to realize the value of top-tier brands. (And Tribune.) "There's a gold rush on." [Boston Globe]
  
• Simon Dumenco gets letters, a few of which don't even refer to him as a muppet! [AdAge]

• NBC News had always planned to can "Nightly News" exec producer John Reiss. The fact that ABC is starting to manhandle them, ratings-wise, is just a happy coincidence. [NYT]
  
• CBS nabs Google's ad sales guy. [NYP]
  
• Troubles at Vibe? Wake us when there aren't troubles at Vibe. [Radar]
  
• Chuck Klosterman really doesn't know. [NYO]
  
• The folks at AsianWeek are really, really sorry about that whole "I Hate Blacks" thing. [AP]
  
• The folks at Jane are really, really sorry about that whole "There Are Your Tits" thing. [WWD]
  
• Sumner Redstone is one sweary motherfucker. [NYP]
  
• Whatever they're doing at Martha Stewart, it's working. [MediaPost]
  
• The U.K. Sun is looking for a few good fatties. [Guardian]

Sources familiar with the deal say Keith Glen Media, the parent company of progressive fashion and culture monthly BlackBook, is expected to take over Vibe magazine, women's quarterly Vibe Vixen and Vibe's Internet, television and mobile offerings. Keith Glen Media is led by CEO Eric Gertler and president Ari Horowitz.

The deal is expected to close today.

Huh. Look at that.

Vibe to be Sold to BlackBook Parent Keith Glen Media [Mediaweek]
Earlier: Mimi Valdes Continues to Work at 'Vibe,' to the Best of Our Knowledge

Heads Rollin' @ Vibe Magazine? [ConcreteLoop.com]
This Just In!!!! Buh-Bye Mimi and Friends!!!!!!!!!!!! [bittervibes]
Fact or Fiction???? Have a Great Long Weekend!!!! [bittervibes]