Power Quakes At 'BlackBook' Magazine
There's trouble in haute paradise at BlackBook magazine, as yesterday's Page Six reports that the high-style quarterly is in crisis:
The fate of Blackbook magazine is uncertain now that Evan Schindler, who founded the style title seven years ago, has been unceremoniously ousted as its creative director by his new partners, Ari Horowitz and Eric Gertler.
One editorial staffer told PAGE SIX: "Schindler started calling advertisers and getting them to pull ads. Diesel pulled three pages for the new issue, which is going to press next week. It's a complete sabotage of the magazine, and it's jeopardizing people's jobs. It's like a kid in a playground saying, 'If I can't have it, no one can.'"
To clarify: Unlike a kid in a playground, Schindler was not pulling ads AFTER he was fired. A well-placed source at BlackBook tells us, "Schindler was fired because he was contacting ad reps and getting them to pull ads, as a way of devaluing the company, and forcing the investors to sell it back to him at a deflated price." Be that as it may, some media insiders are still insisting that more than a few dozen downtown writers and editors will be left begging for bartending shifts at Sweet and Vicious after an inevitable fallout.
When contacted, Blackbook editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin told us, "The magazine is moving forward with an ambitious agenda, including a revamped website and relocating to new, larger offices in downtown Manhattan." These new offices will reportedly bring editorial and business staffs into the same space — a show of company solidarity, or is the magazine trimming the fat and consolidating their cubicles? Interpret as you will; we're still too flabbergasted as to why this item was even in Page Six to begin pondering the larger issues.
