Time Inc. senior editors, especially those of long standing, appear to be stampeding toward the exits.
Betsy Gleick, an executive editor at People and responsible for most of the non-celebrity covers in recent years, will leave after Friday.
“It just felt it was the right time for me to go,” she said when reached at her desk on Thursday. Like Fortune deputy editor Stephanie Mehta, who recently hit the exits, Gleick said she has no new job lined up.
“I’m going to do a lot of the things that I never had the time to do in my 22 years at Time Inc.,” said Gleick.
Current People editorial director Jess Cagle has not named a replacement. Gleick was one of three deputies but she was put in place by former People boss Larry Hackett.
A more pressing problem for Cagle may be finding a replacement for Janice Morris, the editor of People.com who quit to join Twitter.
Time magazine, which seems to be concentrating a lot of its cuts on the international side, recently lost Time International editor Bobby Ghosh to Atlantic Media’s two-year-old online news operation, Quartz.
Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer on Friday announced that he had promoted two staffers–Cliff Leaf and Brian O’Keefe to take Mehta’s place.
“We will miss her and wish her all the best as she takes some well deserved time to chill,” said Serwer in a memo to staffers. “Stephanie had many responsibilities at Fortune, so many in fact I think it’s best no single person person take on all of her work.” Serwere told staffers Friday that Leaf is the new deputy managing editor and O’Keefe is Fortune’s new International editor. The announcement comes on Mehta’s last day on the job.
Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp was recently quoted as saying that editors at Time Inc. like the new corporate structure, which has them reporting to the business side for the first time ever.
But one insider commented, “There is a disconnect between what Joe is saying and what people inside are feeling.”
A company spokeswoman said, “Transition is part of the media business, and we’ve hired dozens of journalists over the past few months.”