Peggy Northrop is will be named the new editor-in-chief of Time Inc.’s Sunset magazine.
The appointment, which is expected today, will mark the first top editor change since Martha Nelson was installed as editor-in-chief of Time Inc. in January.
Out in the shuffle is Kitty Morgan, a one-time top editor of Better Homes & Gardens, who started her career at Sunset. She is leaving a little over a year after replacing longtime editor Katie Tamony.
Sunset’s total circulation of 1,264,832 makes it one of the largest regional magazines in the country.
Northrop, the former top editor at Meredith’s More, made history at Reader’s Digest by winning its first and only general excellence National Magazine Award in 2009. She was forced out in 2011 during the financial upheaval.
More recently she has been working on developing digital projects for magazines, including AARP The Magazine.
Bombing covers
Sports Illustrated will be the first weekly to go with the Boston Marathon bombing on its cover on an issue that hits today.
The cover features the now iconic photo of 78-year-old runner Bill Iffrig, who fell to the ground from the impact of the first blast. The news of the bombing broke about three hours before the magazine was to ship its cover image to printers.
Chris Stone, managing editor of the print edition, bumped a basketball cover.
“We don’t usually cover news stories like this, but it happened at an immensely recognizable sporting event, and it would have been wrong not to,” said Stone, who pulled together a 13-page inside package.
With its ad-heavy Time 100 issue already headed to the printers for its Friday newsstand appearance, Time opted to pull together a special tablet edition on the tragedy.
Time has done three paid tablet editions for the presidential election and convention coverage in 2013, but this week’s edition marks its first free app.
People magazine on the day of the 9/11 attacks ripped up its cover and all of the inside. It was the first major weekly to land on newsstands after that tragedy and the iconic issue remains its best-selling one.
This time around, Managing Editor Larry Hackett is being a little more judicious, putting Boston on the cover for Northeast editions. Country singer Trisha Yearwood will be the main story image on the cover around the rest of the country, with only smaller photo images of the Boston bombing.
In Touch, which had dropped celebrity coverage for seriousness in the days after the Virginia Tech shooting, isn’t going that route again.
“It doesn’t work on our magazines,” said editorial director Dan Wakeford.
He’s sticking with the tried and true Kardashian covers: Kim on Life & Style and Khloe on In Touch.
Prize profits
Although newspapers get more publicity for a Pulitzer, books get a bigger financial boost.
The Pulitzer committee angered book publishers last year when it skipped the award for a work of fiction after failing to reach a consensus. This year, the judges selected “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson for the top prize. By yesterday morning—the day after the awards announcement—it had bolted to No. 6 on Amazon bestseller list from 1,846, according to Publishers Weekly.
Other winning books also soared: “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam,” by Fredrik Logevall, which won the history award, jumped from 33,000 to 373; “Stag’s Leap,” a poetry winner by Sharon Olds, jumped from 82,000 to 289; biography winner “The Black Count: Glory, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo” by Tom Reiss, jumped to 222 from 13,000. according to Publishers Weekly.
Eastbound staff
American Media Inc. will lay off about 20 people in its West Hollywood, Calif., offices as it relocates the editorial staff of Natural Health and Fit Pregnancy to its offices at 4 New York Plaza in downtown Manhattan in mid-June.
AMI returned to the offices in February — more than 3 1/2 months after they were deluged by Superstorm Sandy.
In addition to the move, Shape Editor-in-Chief Tara Kraft will be adding the two titles to her portfolio. “I’ll be starting a new staff here,” said Kraft. “I’ll be looking for an editor-in-chief of both titles.”
Look for AMI new Consulting Editorial Director David Zinczenko to try to raid his old stomping grounds at Rodale.
Peg Moline, current editor-in-chief of both titles on the West Coast, will become a consultant.
Media watcher
SnagFilms, which owns the Indiwire blog network, has tapped former Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman to write a new business blog, called Media Matrix.
Friedman wrote the Media Watch column three times a week for 14 years before leaving MarketWatch earlier this year.