Portfolio's Joanne Lipman must be chafing at the New York Observer's flattering profile of her managing editor, Jacob Lewis. For sure, John Koblin's piece is the first positive coverage of the business magazine in a while. But almost every passage, while praising the new managing editor's calming influence on the troubled Conde Nast title, is an implied criticism of Lipman's management style.
If you missed this yesterday, have a browse through Jezebel's posts on April Fool's Day. This was a stunt with a purpose: the bad-girl site, victim of a spoof takeover by Conde Nast, gradually turned during the course of the day as bland and commercial as the women's magazines it usually so adeptly mocks.
For some of the Web's more respected names, it's a really special day. They get to treat their readers and fans with the contempt they hide most of the year. Below, five pranks today that show just how much the Internet hates you. And I do mean you.
I know there's a non-disparagement clause in our agreement but, then again, Conde Nast promised they'd leave the formula that had made Jezebel so refreshing. So they can hardly expect us to stay silent. Anna, Dodai: if those craven purse-promoters have really driven you out, though I can hardly believe they would be so moronic, there's always a home for you back at Gawker Media.
It's a bittersweet moment. Jezebel has been Gawker's most successful ever launch, and Conde Nast's acquisition of the women's site is the ultimate validation. But it's heartbreaking to let Jezebel go, and part with Anna Holmes, Dodai Stewart, Moe Tkacik, Tracie Egan, Jennifer Gerson and Jessica Grose, the writers who brought a new tone and intelligence to coverage on the web of fashion, media and relationships. It wasn't an easy decision.
Portfolio magazine's highly conceptual covers were commercially foolish, but rather brave. The cityscapes and factory floors of the Conde Nast title's first four issues paid homage to an earlier, more confident era of magazine publishing, in which editors could survive a bad month on the newsstand. And then, spooked by low sell-through numbers, Joanne Lipman panicked. January's Spy vs Spy cover could have been borrowed from the defunct Business 2.0; February's How Fat Won, illustrated by an overloaded burger, is a bogus trend story more often found in Newsweek. The latest shows a man's black shoe treading on a woman's red stiletto reminiscent of nothing more than a classy fetish magazine. Provocative? Pathetic? Discuss.
Portfolio assistant managing editor Ann Powell is leaving the magazine. Her job was basically to nag writers to file their stories, which was especially miserable at Portfolio with the whole newspaper people not knowing how magazines close thing. Word is that she's going to Reader's Digest. How old school! The magazine also did not renew the contract of contributing editor Nancy Hass, despite the fact that she's married to senior editor Bob Roe. It's just like that Patty Smyth song, but with nepotism instead of love.
Congratulations, Portfolio, on that lovely advertising spread for Apple's ultra-thin laptop on pages 2 and 3 of last month's issue. Whatever anybody's said about the magazine's editorial leadership, nobody doubts the Conde Nast title's appeal to advertisers. Ah, but then, again, there's that editorial leadership. Flick forward to Portfolio's feature on corporate polluters: Apple is among the magazine's 'Toxic Ten'. First of all, the magazine was ridiculously unthinking to include any computer company along with industrial giants such as Alcoa. More damning: Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman also forgot one of Conde Nast's golden rules: give an advertiser the opportunity to pull out of an issue containing a critical article. It's both polite, and politic. Apple is said by insiders to be furious, as is Portfolio's outgoing publisher, the normally unflappable David Carey, a rising star on Conde Nast's business side, and someone the embattled Lipman needs on her side. ENLARGE»
Even though no one should ever buy a blog, David Hauslaib is selling Jossip and his three other blogs, says the New York Post. There's a rumor Condé Nast thought about buying, though a source from the publisher's parent company says hell no. And of course Gawker Media doesn't buy blogs, it just poaches their editors.
To think that New York was once the compulsory destination for that dying breed, ambitious magazine entrepreneur. Conde Nast, which has absorbed no significant new magazine since Wired in 1999, is reportedly in discussions to buy Dwell, the trendiest of the shelter titles. Both magazines started in San Francisco.
Well, this is one way for Conde Nast to display its determination to make Portfolio a success. The business magazine's editor, Joanne Lipman, may have lost the confidence of her staff; and the title sells well under a fifth of the copies sent to newsstands. But conglomerate Conde Nast, which has committed $100m in one of the biggest magazine launches in recent years, is launching Portfolio in the UK. Lipman may be sacrificed, but too much money and prestige is invested for Conde Nast to allow the magazine to fail.
Did the TIMES SQUARE I.E.D. affect the Conde Nasties? Did Anna Wintour make it to work today? Any MTV or Viacom slaves want to weigh in on the confusion and terror that have surely overtaken their studios? Send me your stories of heroism. [Photo: Reuters, who are also headquartered right around the corner from this morning's TERROR.]
Portfolio, which Condé Nast started because there were no other credulous business magazines, has a story on why media companies should buy blogs, which is of course entirely wrong. Here's why Gawker Media, TechCrunch, Boing Boing and every other blog making over a million dollars should never be for sale.
So, I guess I created an account on Flip.com a while back (probably to pick up high-schoolers), because I just got an e-mail from the social site where teenage girls are begged to express themselves. The site, which was supposed to rival MySpace and Facebook, is now a Facebook app rated lower than the "What disastrous event are you?" quiz. (Though, to be fair, it's the app's first day, and also I really want to know if I'm Pearl Harbor.) This is hopefully the end of the "Conde Nast Fails At The Internet" saga, which was analyzed here by Nick Denton, my publisher and the man most likely to gloat. IDK, be my BFF on Flip Facebook!
Former Conde Nast editorial director James Truman will try to save the environment by teaming up with an ex-Golf Digest man Mitch Fox. The ex-paper wasters will organize a traveling event that joins eco-technology with a Cirque du Soleil-like performances. Apparently combining green innovations with dramatized gymnastic routines takes priority over starting a media empire. [WWD]
"'Course, there's still obviously some collateral damage leftover from the strike — emotionally, economically, perhaps worst of all, the cancellation of the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. They said they did it out of, quote, respect for the writers. And um, oh! You know another way they could show respect for the writers? Uh, maybe one day invite some of them to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They would enjoy it. They won't mingle, don't worry." [Jon Stewart, host of last night's Academy Awards telecast, ribs the Conde Nast magazine's notoriously snobby party planners, via Mixed Media]
Here's a reminder, if one needed one, of the extraordinary power of the celebrity baby, particularly one who may carry within her the spirit of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Vanity Fair is blaming Baby Suri for a 12.8% decline in newsstand sales. The Conde Nast magazine carried photographs of preacher-star Tom Cruise, wife Katie Holmes, and their newborn, in October 2006; the second half of 2007, which included a worthy but boring Africa issue, had no matching draw. Question: who will win rights to the twins expected by actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? Celebrity weekly insiders say those images will be worth more than the $4m paid for Jolie's last child. (After the jump, our graphical representation of the sums paid for recent alpha reproduction; the larger the image, the more paid.)
Glam, the West Coast network of fashion blogs and other women's sites, is the fastest growing company on the face of the Earth, says its backer. Or else the startup, an increasingly worrying competitor of established media companies such as Hearst and NBC Universal's iVillage, is merely metastasizing, argues Valleywag's Owen Thomas.
Bill Clinton (and his posse) showed up at Conde Nast HQ yesterday afternoon. No one knows why! Except maybe one of you guys—so theories and speculation welcome. Hey, maybe it has something to do with September's Vanity Fair conspiracy that no one has mentioned again, once, since then? Or maybe not! But: "a good many top-level Condé Nasters had left for the annual publishers' meeting Monday and Tuesday in Florida." So maybe he was just there to criticize Joanne Lipman. [WWD]
