Glenn O’Brien — who last summer left the helm of Interview magazine in disgust as the publisher fell behind on payroll — has been tapped to edit the written content of Bergdorf Goodman Magazine.
O’Brien replaces bestselling author Michael Gross, who left the luxury icon’s glossy publication last week after editing its written content for the past seven years, the Post’s James Covert has learned.
Gross, who had aggressively transformed the once-catalog-like publication into an eclectic cultural forum, “has done an incredible job,” said Bergdorf Senior Vice President Mallory Andrews. “But we’re constantly evolving the publication, and sometimes change is a good thing.”
Andrews declined to elaborate, but sources speculated that O’Brien, who did a 10-year stint as creative director of advertising at Barneys, will give the magazine a tighter focus on fashion.
Gross — who published writers like Jay McInerney on subjects as diverse as Bobby Short and Tom Brokaw — had in recent seasons published items on fashion figures like the Olsen twins and Manolo Blahnik at the behest of Bergdorf brass.
“Maybe I didn’t evolve it fast enough,” said Gross, whose most recent book, “Rogue’s Gallery,” gives an inside history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “It’s their toy, and I’m very grateful they let me play with it.”
Union blues
Newsday and the agents representing 1,100 unionized employees in Teamsters Local 406 of the Graphic Communications International Union sat down for their first negotiation session in weeks.
It marks the first meeting since the contract covering the newsroom employees — the largest group in the bargaining unit — expired on March 31.
The local covers everyone from journalists to truckers and press operators.
The Dolan family, which owns Newsday, insists the Long Island daily loses money for the otherwise highly profitable media company. The union dismisses that argument and insists that the losses are only on paper, and attributable to write downs and accounting rules rather than actual operating losses.
The two sides remain far apart, with no new pact on the horizon.
In February, the union overwhelmingly rejected by a 473-to-10 vote the last tentative contract that was put on the table. It would have called for a 10-percent pay cut, reduced vacation pay and a work week that would have gone back to 40 hours from its current 35.
George Tedeschi, head of the Graphic Communications International Union in Washington DC has taken over as the lead negotiator for the Local 406, headed by Michael O’Connor.
Awards truce
Peace reigns between Larry Hackett, People managing ed itor and the new president of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and Allan Dodds Frank, the ex-Bloom berg TV correspon dent and current president of the Overseas Press Club.
The OPC was upset with ASME because for the past two years, the National Magazine Awards were held on the third Thursday in April — the day on which OPC has traditionally held their awards for the better part of a decade.