There’s more turmoil at the Mort Zuckerman-owned Daily News, with staffers fretting that the paper may be heading downmarket as the Web gets an increasing amount of attention at the expense of print.
So far, the digital operation has been immune to the cuts that have roiled the print side.
Yesterday afternoon, Editor-in-Chief Colin Myler and Zuckerman’s right-hand man, President and CEO Bill Holiber, called a meeting in the cafeteria at the company’s new base in downtown Manhattan. Although the meeting dragged on past the scheduled one hour, sources said little in terms of corporate strategy was revealed.
“There was a lot of obfuscating,” said one attendee. “At one point, they seemed to say we had to do more with less, but then they seemed to say they’d be hiring for the Web.”
On Monday, the paper’s managing editor in charge of politics, Ian Bishop, got his walking papers.
Only days earlier, staffers were surprised to learn that Alexander Hitchen — a British tabloid reporter whose main claim to fame was his role at the National Enquirer in breaking the story of the John Edwards affair with Rielle Hunter — was coming on board as the paper’s new photo editor.
For most of the past decade, Hitchen was a writer for the supermarket tabloid, although he served as a deputy photo editor at the London-based News of the World more than a decade ago.
NOTW was owned by News Corp., The Post’s parent, until the company closed it last year in the wake of a phone-hacking scandal. Myler was the last editor-in-chief of the defunct NOTW.
Hitchen, the fourth photo editor at the News in only eight years, replaces Gretchen Viehmann, who resigned in November but stuck around at management’s request until March.
The Daily News has trimmed its top-heavy masthead from eight managing editors to six, although Bishop is still listed.
No-win situation
Simon & Schuster is cutting back on all pre-publication appearances for its book about late Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, written by former Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski.
However, it is still pressing ahead with the book, which is expected to have a first printing of somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 copies.
Posnanski is said to have received an advance of around $750,000 to write what was expected to be a warm tribute to the winningest coach in all of college football.
Then came the conviction of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky on sex-abuse charges going back to the 1990s, when he was still on staff, and the ensuing cover-up. The NCAA slapped the university with a $60 million fine and revoked more than 100 Penn State wins. That knocked Paterno from his perch as college football’s winningest coach.
“He’s in an unbelievably no-win situation,” said one industry source of Posnanski. “Like every Penn State fan, he was burned.”
Jonathan Karp, publisher of Simon & Schuster, insists that there is lot to be gleaned from the book that has not been revealed — even in the devastating report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
“We think it is a book of real quality and interest, and people will be surprised by what it contains,” said Karp.
The book was to have been called “The Grand Experiment: The Life and Meaning of Joe Paterno.” It has since been shortened to simply “Paterno.”
Terry McDonell, editor of the Time Inc. Sports Group, passed up a chance to run an excerpt in June. Instead, it will run in GQ’s September issue.
“We’re not permitted to discuss the details of the excerpt, but we think all the recent developments make the article even more fascinating,” said a GQ spokesman.
Fashion derby
In the fashion category, only Condé Nast flagship Vogue is sitting on its numbers for September.
In Style Publisher Connie Anne Phillips told Media Ink that the September issue will be the largest in the 18-year history of the Time Inc.-owned title, with 440 ad pages, up 10 pages or 2.3 percent from a year ago.
“It’s not just an up issue, it’s a trend,” said Phillips. “In Style alone has had four years of consecutive page growth.”
In Style generally trails Vogue’s tally for September but has finished with the full-year crown for the past three years.
Elle magazine, in its first full year under Hearst ownership following the takeover of Hachette Filipacchi Media, outpaced in-house rival Harper’s Bazaar.
Adweek reported that Elle will have 400 ad pages, up 14 percent over last year. It’s not quite its best issue ever, as it had 413 ad pages in 2008, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
Harper’s Bazaar was up 16.6 percent to 360 ad pages, according to Adweek, which said W is expecting a flat September.
Vogue is expected to have a slightly up month when it releases its numbers later today.