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As WWD reported this morning, Details wunderkind Brian Farnham — who in five years there rose to the No. 2 position at the mag — resigned yesterday to become the new editor-in-chief of Time Out New York. TONY has been EIC-less since Joe Angio left at Christmastime to focus on promoting his documentary on Melvin Van Peebles. There were apparently "many, many, MANY
candidates interviewed" for the job — which presumably explains why it was open for so long — and Farnham will be starting May 1. After the jump, dueling memos: A terse — and head-patting — farewell from Details chief Dan Peres, and a gushing welcome from Time Out president Alison Tocci.

From: Peres, Dan
Sent: Mon Apr 03 18:17:00 2006
To: FP Details Edit
Subject:

Please join me in congratulating Brian Farnham, who has just been named the new Editor-in-chief of Time Out New York. Clearly, this is a bittersweet moment for me —- as I would imagine it is for all of you, as well. Brian will be greatly missed, as his contributions to Details these last 5 years have been instrumental to our success. For as much as this is a blow to the magazine, I couldn't be happier for — not to mention — more proud of Brian.

D.

You've all been seeing the black smoke coming out of my office these past months, but I've just officially changed it to white... we have an Editor-in-Chief!

Our new EIC is Brian Farnham. He resigned today from his position as Deputy Editor at Details magazine to accept our offer. His first day at TONY will be May 1st.
Brian came up through the ranks at Details, and previously held the titles Senior Associate Editor and Senior Editor. His focus was on the front of the book, developing writers, and conceiving new packages such as the annual Power issue.

He has worked freelance for the NY Times, New York, (where he also worked as a reporter early on), Harpers Bazaar, Newsday and Nerve, and he wrote a book about the creation of iWon.com, a $100 million CBS-backed web venture for which he followed the site's two founders for eight months. He was also a producing editor for Sidewalk.com.

Brian graduated from Bowdoin, and has an M.F.A from the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia. He was born and raised on the East side of NYC.

He is smart, funny, articulate, hungry, web-savvy, and an information junkie like the rest of us. I think he'll make a fantastic addition to the mix and take Time Out exactly where we want to go next. Of the many, many, MANY candidates interviewed, Brian stood out for his ability to articulate a vision for TONY and to generate package and front-of-book ideas that screamed TONY in a most refreshing way.

Brian's arrival also coincides nicely with the May 3 launch of our redesign. Get those binoculars ready, it's time for a new look!

I know you'll make Brian welcome, and I look forward to announcing an all staff soiree the week of May 1st to officially say hello.

Alison Tocci
President/Group Publisher
Time Out New York
475 Tenth Ave., 12th floor
NY NY 10018