Tim Armstrong tried to Patch things up — to no avail.
The AOL CEO backpedaled yesterday and issued a public apology for firing an employee of its Patch local news network during a conference call on Friday morning after four days of relentlessly bad PR.
In an email yesterday morning to all Patch employees, Armstrong said, “I am writing to acknowledge the mistake I made last Friday during the Patch all-hands meeting when I publicly fired Abel Lenz.
“I am the CEO and leader of the organization, and I take that responsibility seriously,” he continued.
Lenz could not be reached for comment after the public apology — but it apparently did not include an offer to return to work at Patch.
As creative director, Lenz had overseen a recent redesign of the Patch website, but it has not cured the site’s ills.
Armstrong, who is in the midst of a major downsizing of the money-losing venture, fired Lenz for trying to take a picture of Armstrong during the call.
The call was held at the Patch offices in Manhattan, with about 1,000 employees listening to the bizarre explosion by their boss.
At one point in that call, Armstrong said he would take “full credit and full blame for anything that is not right at Patch. If the copy machine doesn’t work or a town doesn’t work, anything that is going wrong at Patch, you can blame me.”
He also said, “I don’t care what the press says. I don’t care if people leak information. I’ve already lived through that when I took over AOL,” according to the tape of the conference call on Jimromenesko.com, a journalism website.
Seconds later, however, when Lenz apparently raised his lens to snap a picture, Armstrong snapped: “Abel, put that camera down. You’re fired. Out!”
The AOL boss and company reps remained mum on the firing for nearly three days.
Legal experts said Armstrong could face a potential liability problem if the employee felt that the public dismissal interfered with his future employment opportunities and damaged his job prospects.
Variety spice
Fake “Peter Bart” is at it again.
An email making the rounds claims to be from longtime Variety Editor-in-chief Bart announcing a plan to redress a past wrong allegedly committed in a story when the trade mag was under control of Reed Elsevier and he was its editorial boss.
The real-life Bart, who is now an editor-at-large and columnist for the weekly magazine and digital properties owned by Jay Penske’s PMC Media, says he never sent the emails and has no idea who is sending them.
“Someone has been doing this on and off for three years now,” he said. “I have no idea who it is, but I think the lawyers have traced it to someone in Paris.”
He has joined the lawsuit filed by current Variety owner Penske in Los Angeles federal district court in May seeking to halt the emails said to be from something called PeterBartProductions and find out who is behind them.
The email claims that Bart and Hollywood power broker Jerry Bruckheimer wronged an individual and now Bart plans to make it right.
The fake email invites the media to a press conference at Variety headquarters later this month where he plans to come clean.
A Variety spokesperson said no press conference has been called. She declined further comment on the pending suit.
Stone roller
Former Rolling Stone Publisher Matt Mastrangelo, fired by Jann Wenner after a 12-year career at Wenner Media including two in the top ad sales job, has landed at Condé Nast.
He’s going to be the new associate publisher on Self, reporting to publisher Laura McEwen. He replaces Anita Maiella, who left in May.
Self, not strictly a fashion book, had a good September, up 2 percent compared to a year earlier. But it has not been enough to offset a slight decline in ad pages for the year to date.
McEwen said last year’s tally was padded by multipage inserts, which helped boost the ad page tally to Publishers Information Bureau.
But it didn’t necessarily help the bottom line as much; the multipage format commands a lower price-per-page than a regular run-of-press ad.
She said they’ve broken new business from blue-chip advertisers such as Dior, Armani and Mercedes Benz this year.
Renee Lewin remains as the associate publisher, focused on creative services and marketing.