VOGUE Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour finally addressed the swirling rumors that she is on the way out at the world’s most influential fashion magazine.
“I have no intention of leaving American Vogue now or in the foreseeable future,” she told The Post’s Media Ink.
She made her comments after a New Yorker breakfast at the Plaza Hotel, where she shared the dais with two other editorial titans in the Condé Nast empire, Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter and The New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick.
At one point in the proceedings, the panelists were asked by moderator Ken Auletta what their “next act” would be after their current jobs.
Remnick quipped, “death.”
Wintour replied on the panel that her father always advised that you “should leave” when “you get angry enough.”
She then attempted to clarify by recalling how as a child she had landed in Venice on vacation with her journalist father, who was the editor of London’s Evening Standard when news broke that Marilyn Monroe had died and his paper had gotten beat on the story.
Her father was so angry with the editors and reports that he immediately cut short the family vacation.
“When I get that angry, that’s when I take up gardening,” she said, to the audience. After the event when asked if her remarks could be construed in some way as foreshadowing an angry departure from Vogue, she then made her denial of any such plans.
The other burning question was whether there was a recent deal with Condé Nast boss S.I. Newhouse to extend her contract, which reportedly, was soon to expire. In typical Wintour fashion, she did not dally for a follow-up and strode out of the event, and into the morning. The company has been insisting all along that talk Wintour would be replaced by the editor of French Vogue was off the mark.
When the French Vogue rumor caught fire, Newhouse, via a spokesman, issued one of his rare public statements. “It is the silliest rumor I’ve ever heard and there is no truth to it,” he said.
While Si said he wasn’t looking at importing the French model to the American throne, it still left open the possibility that Wintour had finally grown weary of editing the magazine that she has helmed for 20 years.
It marked the first time she had spoken publicly about the swirling controversy.
Rough sport
Sports Illustrated Group Editor Terry McDonell had to give the old heave-ho to his longtime colleague Charlie Leerhsen, an executive editor on the weekly.
“I was told my job had been eliminated,” said Leerhsen, who had worked with McDonell at Wenner Media’s Us Weekly and followed him to SI nearly seven years ago. Leerhsen had earlier been a top editor at People and years earlier had worked with McDonell when they were both at Newsweek.
“I have a book contract that I can at least fall back on,” said Leerhsen. He said he just signed a deal with Simon & Schuster for a low six- figure advance to write about the controversial first Indianapolis 500 in 1911. “They still don’t know who won,” said Leerhsen.
The Sports Illustrated Group, which now includes Golf Magazine, SI for Kids and related Web sites, was looking for 40 people to step forward and take voluntary severance packages. But as of Dec. 1, sources said only a handful of volunteers had stepped forward.
As a result, about 30 pink slips are going to be handed out today.
Time’s up
The ax man arrived at Fortune and Time yesterday. Andy Serwer, Fortune’s managing editor, was looking for 12 volunteers to take a buyout, but found only about four to step forward. That meant that five of the writers who had been dedicated to the Fortune.com site were laid off, along with three other staffers.
Back when Condé Nast’s Portfolio was viewed as a potential major competitor in print and on the Web, Time Inc. had reversed its plan to squish all the Fortune online content into the CNNMoney.com site and instead had redesigned and rein troduced a separate Fortune.com site within the overall brand.
But once the Portfoli o.com site was gutted as part of the Condé Nast Portfolio cut backs, the competitive threat was gone.
Portfolio.com shrank from a staff of nearly 30 full- timers and dedicated freelancers to only five people.
A spokeswoman said that all Fortune staffers would be writing on the Web in the future.
At Time, which was looking for 20 volunteers, only about 10 materialized – which meant that Managing Editor Rick Stengel had to give pink slips to 10 people yesterday.
On Wednesday and yesterday, People said goodbye to about 18 people – 10 who had to be axed and eight who had previously agreed to take voluntary early-retirement packages.
Mag move
Disney Publishing hired Deborah Mignucci as vice president and group publisher of US consumer magazines. She’ll basically be running the business side of two magazines, Family Fun and Wondertime. Disney had axed the magazine’s individual publishers, Mary Beth Wright at FamilyFun and David Nevorah at Wondertime, in September.
“They basically took the two jobs and made them into one,” said one source.
Both magazines will boost their rate bases in 2009. FamilyFun goes from 2 million to 2.1 million. Wondertime jumps from 500,000 to 650,000, a 30 increase since its launch in 2006.
CNBC cuts
The cutbacks at CNBC did not quite reach the 80-person level that had been feared earlier in the week, but the cuts were deep. One insider estimated that about 55 people are exiting, as part of parent NBC’s plan to cut 500 jobs or 3 percent of its workforce.
One show, “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch,” is going on hiatus. Sources said its ratings have been tanking. “It didn’t seem to fit the environment in the current economic crisis,” said one insider.
Deutsch, however, is going to be “redeployed” and he could be hosting a once-a-month show over the next year, plus making regular appearances on CNBC and NBC’s “Today” show.
Also among the CNBC departees is Josh Howard, the vice presi dent of long-form pro gramming. His contract was not renewed and his duties will be taken over by Mitch Weitzner, execu tive producer of long-form journal ism.
CNBC boss Mark Hoffman appar ently pleaded his case to Jeff Zucker not to cut deeper into CNBC on the grounds that ratings are up. “The cuts were going to be draconian,” said a source.
OK! skips
OK! looks like three of its last four issues of the year will be double issues. Skipping dates suggests it is cheaper to not publish than it is to publish.
Publishing sources estimate that its edition in the slow-moving Thanksgiving week had sold only 300,000 copies while a double issue with Michelle Obama sold about 500,000 copies. That suggests that the magazine has been missing its rate- base promise to advertisers of 900,000 copies a week.
Said Kent Brownridge, OK! general manager: “With the exception of People, which had two phenome nal issues in the fourth quarter, all of the other celeb rity weeklies are down.”
“There are three weeks where the schedule gets messed up with the wholesalers – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. I just said, freak it, I’m publishing double issues instead.” keith.kelly@nypost.com