We suggested recently that Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko, the abberific Max Zorin of magazine editors who at Jon Stewart's magazine-bashing session spouted such gems as "fit is the new rich" and "we worship at the altar of our readers," might just possibly be — when the planets align the right way, from the right angle, in the right light — a tremendous tool.
Radar sold out! Radar sold out!
It seems that Brendan Lemon, editor of Out magazine, has resigned. You might say that he is out of a job, in fact!
We attended last night's profoundly weird Magazine Publishers of America panel, "Laughing Matters: Magazines Celebrate Humor," at which Jon Stewart interviewed four top editors — Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter, Time's Jim Kelly, Cosmo's Kate White, and Men's Health's Dave Zinczenko — about, theoretically, the role of humor in magazines. It was really more of a free-for-all rant.
The newspaper business has been reeling from exposes of circulation fraud for more than a year — drastic overstatements of copies sold everywhere from Long Island's Newsday to The Dallas Morning News to the Chicago Sun-Times. Now a new round of subpoenas have gone out, this time targeting magazines. Even worse, they're targeting what was formerly the staid, Presbyterian stalwart of magazine publishing, Time Inc. Ad Age breaks the news:
• First the Democratic Party, now NBC: All our old friends are going after those dastardly God-fearing Red Staters. [NYT]
• Did you know CMJ is actually a magazine? Yeah, we were afraid of that. [Folio:]
• If we've got the chronology right: Jennifer Bleyer tripped through Dead show in Ohio, came to New York and found a shul on the Upper West Side, created Heeb, showed Howard Stern her ass, and quit the magazine. Then she wrote about it. [Nextbook]
• ASME wants to pick the best 40 magazine covers from the last 40 years, and we're betting none will feature Britney. [MW]
• NBC, CNN to open New Orleans news bureaus. Wow — U.S. TV neworks expanding their coverage. We never thought we'd see the day. [AP via USAT]
• Turns out that, yes, "I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport," can, in fact, get you fired from your school paper, even in North Carolina. [N&O]
From Page Six today:
Above, thefront-page cartoon from last Wednesday's Observer. At right, the cover of today's The New Yorker.
• Principled, uncompromising Judy Miller now in negotiations to compromise and get out of jail — which Reuters doesn't mention till graf six. [Reuters via HuffPost]
• Media continue to develop backbone, as newsweeklies say no to FEMA request for no corpse pictures. [NYP]
• CBS News's non-opinionated, non-ombudsman, non-media crit blog launches Monday. We don't know how we'll last till then. [Mediaweek]
• Craiglist could kill the newspaper classifieds biz entirely. Plus casual encounters! [SmartMoney]
• TWX honchos go to fashion shows, and chief Dick Parsons is sad there's not Tyra. [WWD]
• Henry Luce III, son of Time founder and longtime Time Inc. reporter and exec, dies at 80. [NYT]
• Dick Cheney learns the perils of live TV. [Jossip]
• You know how we finally started liking TV reporters last week? Well, now that their bosses are back from vacation, says Nikki Finke, it's not gonna last. [LA Weekly]
• Bob Guccione Jr., founder of Spin and Gear, to buy Discover from Disney. Savor that: It's not every day you see "Guccione" and "Disney" in the same sentence. [NYT]
• Next week ASME will consider reprimanding The New Yorker for its Target single-advertiser issue. Because obviously The New Yorker is the big problem in the magazine business these days. [CS-T]
• Camilla Al Fayed, daughter of Harrod's owner Mohammed Al Fayed, crosses the pond next week. But not, as reported, to be Anna Wintour's assistant. Alas. [WWD]
• On-the-ground conditions after Hurricane Katrina made reporters there mad. Very mad. [NYO]
• The Newhouses love their Times-Picayune more than ever. [NYO]
• A new publisher for OK! America, and other staff moves there. [NYP]
• Adam Bly, now in his wizened mid-20s, will relaunch his science-and-life mag, Seed, with new money. [WWD]
• Is Al Franken caught up in Air America/Boys & Girls Club scandal? [NY Sun]
• While traditional newsweekly circ falls, The Economist and The Week saw big gains. [Mediapost]
Yesterday, Organic Style; today, Razor. We imagine most of you have never heard of this (relatively) new lad mag on the block. Truth is, we wouldn't have either, if not for some highly overcaffeinated and equally self-defeating publicity efforts over the last two years. We can't say we're particularly sorry to see Razor go, except that we hear the mag's publisher used to threaten a previous incarnation of us, and that incarnation could always use some more excitement in his boring and lonely life.
Word just arrived from Emmaus, Pa. — OK, fine, from Third Avenue, but still — that Rodale is shuttering Organic Style. We're not able to discern the societal implications of this news, as we've never read the magazine (which, we suppose, is part of the problem) and therefore have no idea what we'll be missing. But we're truly sorry to hear about the mag's now-unemployed employees, and not only because it means there are more people competing with us for a job.
Hachette Filipacchi Media, the devish Franco-publishers behind Elle, Woman's Day, Premiere, Car & Driver and a slew of others, has pioneered itself into a spanking-new corporate partnership with Zinio Systems, some techie company that plans to get all 18 of HF's titles online by early 2006. No more lugging around 3 pounds of Elle just to get some monthly sense slapped into you by E. Jean.
The New York Sun — and hey, they would know — has a sad revelation this morning: the celebrity magazine editor is dying. ("Oooh!" our readers scream, "which one, which one, which one??!!") The Sun focuses on Richard Spencer, the editor-in-chief of In Touch Weekly, a former soap opera writer and a guy who nobody knows, which is what happens when you work in Englewood, New Jersey. (If MediaBistro had a Fishbowl Englewood, they'd have a weekly feature talking to everyone they could see eating Cheez-Its and drinking bad coffee at different tables in the Bauer break room.)
