Tina Brown (AP)
(
)
There are signs of more nipping and tucking inside the mini-media empire of New York Observer owner Jared Kushner.
The website velvetroper.com, which tracks the trendy party scene, is being shut down. Its last posting was Sept. 12, and its editor, Laura Griffin, has been cut back to a “consultant.”
Julie Dannenberg, one of the trio of high-profile people who defected from Manhattan Media earlier this year to launch the upscale Scene magazine for Kushner, said that soon-to-launch Scene website will replace velvetroper.com.
Scene is related to the Observer Media Group through Kushner, but Dannenberg, who is the CEO of Scene, said it is actually a separate company that shares its back-office functions with Observer Media Group. She said she is a partner with Kushner on the project.
But there is some question as to how independent it really is.
When we placed a call to Scene Art Director Cricket Burns, to track down rumors that Scene itself might be closing down, the call was returned by Aaron Gell, who took over the weekly Observer following the surprise exit of Elizabeth Spiers this summer.
Spiers was said to have clashed with Kushner over lack of development of several big projects, including what was hyped as the rollout of a national Observer website. Those expansion plans appear to be on indefinite hold.
Kushner could not be reached for comment due to the Jewish holidays.
However, Dannenberg insisted all is well at Scene, which has published eight issues.
“It’s doing really well,” she said. “We’re already making money.” She said that the parenthood magazine Scooter, aimed at affluent New York parents, which cut back from seven times a year to a biannual, recently moved onto the Scene ledger.
As for a Scene website, she said, “We’ll relaunch in the next few weeks.”
Said Gell, “Scene needs an online home, and it became obvious we are just competing with ourselves. Scene is the stronger brand.”
Daily News Editor-In-Chief Colin Myler and President and CEO William Holiber were too busy to speak about more cuts at the paper. But insiders were buzzing about the departure of two more high-level editors.
Heather Eatman, the managing editor/design became the latest masthead editor to exit — making Daily News managing editors among the most endangered species in the media world.
She follows by several weeks the ouster of Thomas Sullivan, ME/production, and the July axing of Managing Editor/Politics Ian Bishop. With seven weeks to go before the presidential election, the News finally got around to replacing Bishop with ABC News producer Joel Siegel.
Oddly, Kevin Convey — near the end of his short-lived run as editor-in-chief — had told managing editors last fall that the masthead was going to shrink and many of the MEs would keep their jobs but would lose their listing on the masthead.
That triggered an in-house rebellion, which had to be quelled by Holiber. Convey had to apologize to the managing editors for his “gaffe.”
In January, Convey was fired and replaced by Myler.
Only it now appears Convey was foretelling the future, as the masthead that once held up to seven positions has indeed been rapidly compressed.
Eatman is still listed on the masthead, but in reality the number of MEs on the masthead is down to two: Robert F. Moore, managing editor/news and Teri Thompson, managing editor/sports.
Others have died, quit or been fired. All were high-priced veterans. While some positions have been filled, none of the new arrivals has made it onto the masthead.
Adam Berkowitz, who at one point was running the News website but never made it onto the masthead, apparently resigned along with Eatman last Thursday. He held the title of editor of convergence.
When we reached him at the Daily News, he said, “Can’t talk. Bye.”
He then hung up the phone. Insiders said the lifelong News employee plans to devote himself full time to a youth basketball league.
“He spent half of his time working on the basketball league anyway,” said one source.
Eatman did not return calls seeking comment.
A Daily News spokesman said the paper does not comment on personnel moves.
Changing places
There was another high-level departure from Newsweek/Daily Beast, headed by Tina Brown — this time a top ad salesman from the digital side.
Eric Danetz is quitting as senior vice president, digital, to take the same job with Alloy Media.
Barry Diller, chairman of the parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp, surprised many in August when he said that he thought that Newsweek and many other struggling print publications would be transforming to digital in the future.
“The digital side of our business is growing incredibly fast — up 50 percent year over year. We have a very strong digital sales team to continue the upward growth into quarter four,” said Newsweek Daily Beast President Rob Gregory. “We wish Eric well as he moves to lead his own team at Alloy,” said Gregory.
Gregory and Brown will be teaming up with a big conference in Washington DC at the Peace Institute on Nov. 14 and 15 to coincide with a special Heroes issue of Newsweek.
It plans to highlight the armed forces and first responders. Admiral William H. McRaven of US special operations command, who was in charge of the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden, is expected to be there along with Steven Spielberg, who will be screening his new film on Abraham Lincoln.
If the Heroes issue is successful on the advertising front, some observers think it could provide the template for the new Newsweek being envisioned by Diller, with more conferences tied to theme issues of the magazine — and of course more “double issues.”
So far, there has been no indication from IAC of the new plan that Diller had promised to unveil in September or October.
Fore!
Could this be the look of things to come across all of Condé Nast by the end of the fiscal year?
Golf Digest has shut down its custom publishing wing, and let go Bob Lamarche, who had been producing the 2013 Masters issue for the tournament at Augusta National.
Also given their walking papers were two other high-salaried veterans: Managing Editor Robert Schiffman and Brand Editor Bob Carney.
A Golf Digest spokeswoman said, “We’re looking to be nimble and efficient and staff to what is needed by the brands.”
Golf Digest was down 17 percent in advertising pages in the first half of the year, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
Correction
The name of Edward Atorino’s company, which appeared in a Sept. 14 article on USA Today’s redesign, is Benchmark Co. It is not related to Benchmark Capital.