The Business of Magazines

[KoV]

*Rapoport


I’ve just heard they gave Sohla a 20% salary raise of $10k a few weeks ago. Probably significantly less than the ad revenue on any 1 of the videos she’s starred in, though.

 

[tipi1355]

This statement seems to be backfiring on them. The replies and retweets coming in are mostly from former Condé employees all basically saying the reason they’re no longer with the company is because of a lack of these things in the environment.

 

[kokurox]

Hearst to name Vanity Fair’s Samira Nasr as Harper’s Bazaar chief, sources say

By Keith J. Kelly June 9, 2020

Hearst is expected to announce it has raided rival publishing house Condé Nast to hire Vanity Fair’s executive fashion director Samira Nasr as the new editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, The Post has learned.

The top job at Harper’s Bazaar has been open since January, when Glenda Bailey shocked the fashion world by resigning after 19 years. She remains a consultant to the brand.

Nasr previously worked for Harper’s Bazaar rival Elle magazine before being recruited to Vanity Fair by editor-in-chief Radhika Jones. At Elle, Nasr had clashed with editor-in-chief Nina Garcia, sources said. Now she will return to the fashion magazine world as an equal, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.

Hearst Magazines president Troy Young and chief content officer Kate Lewis had been casting a wide net for the job. Among the rumored candidates had been Christine Barberich, a co-founder of Refinery 29 who was forced to step down Monday from the site now owned by Vice Media amid claims that she favored white staffers and fostered a toxic work environment for people of color.

Other candidates considered for the job, sources say, have included Kristina O’Neill, editor-in-chief of WSJ magazine and former executive editor at HB; Laura Brown, editor-in-chief of rival In Style at Meredith, and Susan Bugbee, editor of The Cut, a fashion-centric vertical at New York magazine.

Nasr could not be reached for comment, but sources tell Media Ink that an announcement is imminent.


Source | NYPost

 

[KoV]

Hearst timed this announcement beautifully.

 

[axiomatic]

Nice scoop for the veteran Keith J Kelly

 

[vogue28]

What do you think we could expect from Samira Nasr at the helm of Harper’s Bazaar? Something more streamlined or a similar template to Glenda Bailey? Must admit that I’m not a follower of Nasr’s work or aesthetics.

 

[Miss Dalloway]

What a great choice. She is talented, hard working, experienced and just might turn around that wreck of a title, if the suits let her, that is!!!

 

[caioherrero]

Wow, nice surprise. Can’t wait to see the new team and what’s she’s gonna do.
Yoshua Will be her teAn

 

[MissMagAddict]

Condé Nast — it’s like a house of cards.

Matt Duckor — VP, Head of Programming Lifestyle & Style at Condé Nast

 

[dodencebt]

Of course Samira wouldn't stay at Vanity Fair; those drab Vuitton and Chanel-sponsored September covers of Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart would be reason enough for me to leave. I wish her the best at Harper's Bazaar in these hard times if this is true!

 

[axiomatic]

Condé Nast — it’s like a house of cards.

More, plus news from CN staff meeting:

thedailybeast.com
Condé Nast Staffers Expose Entertainment Chief’s Old Tweets About Mexicans and Women

After the editor of Bon Appétit resigned on Monday over diversity pay practices and an old photo of him engaging in racial stereotypes, Condé Nast staffers have begun raising questions about another executive’s old social-media posts.

During an all-staff meeting on Tuesday, one anonymous employee posted a question asking about Condé Nast Entertainment chief Oren Katzeff’s old tweet about sexual consent.

“Wonder why CNE has a company culture that allows leadership to have posts like this on their timelines,” the person wrote, linking to a 2010 tweet in which Katzeff wrote: “Earlier today, I saw a girl wearing a shirt that said ‘No means Yes!’ That might explain why the guy holding her hand was smiling…”

That tweet has since been deleted, but following the meeting, several irate staffers sent The Daily Beast other years-old tweets from Katzeff.

“Millie went up to the Mexican waiter and asked him for paper (to draw on). He thought she was asking for his papers. Comedy ensued,” Katzeff wrote in one 2014 tweet being shared by Condé employees.

“My 2 yr old gets a present for pottying like a big girl. Now she wants presents for all big girl things, like nagging and being irrational,” read another post, from 2011, which was deleted Tuesday.

“There either is a cat on my flight, meowing repeatedly a few rows behind me, or a REALLY horny woman,” Katzeff wrote in another 2014 post, which was also removed.

In a statement to The Daily Beast, Katzeff apologized but noted that he was working at a comedic publication at the time he made the social-media posts.

“These tweets were made at a time when I was working in comedy and in a different role in my life, but that doesn’t excuse them,” he said. “History has shown that they are not funny and I regret posting them. I’m sorry for the offense and pain they may have caused.”

Katzeff joined Condé Nast to head up the company’s entertainment production unit in 2018 after running programming at Tastemade for five years. The CNE president has overseen some of the company’s massive expansion into video and entertainment spaces, as well as its film and television initiatives.

On Monday, Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport announced his resignation after a 2013 photo of him and his wife resurfaced showing them dressed up as stereotypical Puerto Ricans for Halloween. Several Bon Appétit staffers immediately called for his resignation, especially after one employee wrote in an Instagram that “only white editors are paid for their video appearances.”

During Tuesday’s all-staff meeting, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch said the company will take a number of steps to combat racial inequality inside and outside of the company.

Related in Arts and Culture
Condé will scrutinize its internal company makeup by "accelerating our first ever diversity and inclusion report to be published later this summer,” Lynch said, noting that company brass would also conduct a pay-equity study. While he reaffirmed Condé Nast leadership’s commitment to increasing its diversity in leadership roles, Lynch admitted: “We still have a lot of work to do.”

The CEO also reiterated that the magazine publisher was providing “financial support” and “a million dollars in advertising support” to nonprofits committed to fighting racism, as well as a “substantial donation” to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Lynch additionally argued that employees need to speak up about diversity issues internally, and suggested the onus was partially on staff to highlight them in internal company channels.

“I urge you: take advantage of the internal channels to express these concerns or share these ideas so we can work together to avoid these issues,” he said. “I think if people had used the internal channels and raised concerns about this earlier on, we would’ve been able to address them. But we can only solve problems if we talk about our problems.”

Like many other media companies, the historic magazine publisher has been forced to make huge cuts in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the resultant economic downturn.

Last month, Condé Nast announced that it furloughed 100 employees, laid off some staff, and instituted company-wide tiered pay reductions.

During Tuesday’s meeting the company also announced that it plans to reinstate full employee salaries in September, and that it would re-evaluate some of the furloughs—though Lynch also said the company could not guarantee no future layoffs or furloughs.

But Lynch also faced tough questions on a number of other recent Condé Nast moves. Staff pressed the CEO on whether company leaders could have taken larger salary reductions themselves to avoid layoffs for staff.

Lynch also acknowledged that the announcement of the hiring of two new VPs on the same day the company furloughed 100 staff “wasn’t opportune.”

 

[axiomatic]

Nasr story from the magazine:

Samira Nasr Announced as New Editor in Chief of 'Harper's BAZAAR'
By Bianca Betancourt

Hearst Magazines has officially named Samira Nasr editor in chief of the U.S. edition of Harper's BAZAAR, overseeing content strategy and development across the brand’s print and digital platforms. The announcement was made by Hearst President and CEO Steven R. Swartz and Hearst Magazines President Troy Young. Nasr will report to Hearst Magazines Chief Content Officer Kate Lewis and begins her new role July 6. Nasr is the first Black editor in chief in the history of the 153-year-old publication.

“Fashion and BAZAAR are synonymous,” Nasr says. “It is a tremendous privilege to be entrusted with moving this legacy brand into a new era—one that is colorful, inclusive, and celebrates the beauty of fashion on every platform—while carrying on the tradition of innovative art direction and great style that the BAZAAR audience loves so much. The most beautiful part of working in magazines is the teamwork and creating a community. I can’t wait to get started.”

Nasr was most recently executive fashion director at Vanity Fair, where she managed and directed the magazine’s fashion department and all fashion content, including styling iconic covers such as the 25th annual Hollywood issue, the spring style issue featuring cover star Lupita Nyong’o, and the May 2019 issue with Nicole Kidman.

“Harper’s BAZAAR is a leading American fashion brand with a point of view that is hugely influential in the U.S. and around the world,” Young says. “Samira’s important voice will continue to evolve the brand’s distinct position as a style touchstone for fashion’s most discerning.”

This role marks a homecoming to Hearst Magazines for Nasr, who was fashion director at ELLE for five years. Prior to that, she was style director for InStyle. In addition to working with top fashion magazines in publishing, Nasr has also styled campaigns for fashion and beauty brands, including Laura Mercier, Tiffany & Co., Tory Burch, Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, Clarins, and more. She began her career in fashion working as an assistant to Grace Coddington, former creative director of Vogue, after earning a graduate degree in journalism at New York University.

“BAZAAR has always presented the world of fashion through a unique lens—smart, vibrant, adoring. Those words could not better describe Samira, who understands and delights in the world of fashion, but has a thoroughly modern and distinctive take,” Lewis says. “She innately understands the BAZAAR woman, because she is the BAZAAR woman: passionate about fashion, culture, and the issues that matter today. I know she will make something magical here.”

Born in Montreal, Canada, Nasr currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her son.

Samira Nasr Is Harper's BAZAAR's New Editor in Chief

 

[axiomatic]

 

[axiomatic]

This takedown of Rapoport and other editor "bros" from 2011 is making the rounds:

Dude, Where’s My Magazine?

John Koblin
9-11 minutes
NEW YORK — A few weeks ago, Bon Appétit editor in chief Adam Rapoport and New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren went out to dinner at Veritas with Times food critic Sam Sifton and Random House editor Andy Ward. It was, in Rapoport’s words, a “very dude dinner.”

Once the waitress came around to take drink orders, Lindgren made the great faux pas of ordering a sparkling wine.


“I was like ‘Dude! What? You want a sparkler?’” said Rapoport.

Sh-t talk began. The other dudes had ordered vodka and bourbons.

“We were giving Hugo a hard time because he wanted a, quote-unquote, ‘sparkler’ to start off the meal,” Rapoport said. “He got a lot of grief from all three of us.”

Just a night of dudes being dudes, bros being bros, but there’s a lot of this going around Manhattan media these days. In fact, you don’t have to look farther than the youngish, vaguely athletic, literate and street-jargoned top editors at The New York Times Magazine, Bon Appétit and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. They’re dudes; they’re editors. Ladies and dudes, meet the Dude-itors. These are not the editors who call you “Mr.” and “Miss,” as famed New Yorker editor William Shawn once did — although he did drive an M.G. convertible on the weekend. These guys say “Hey, man” as a salutation. Dude-itors don’t practice lines for lunch at the Century Association — they practice their golf swing in the office, toss around Nerf footballs when an issue is closing, and occasionally play pickup basketball together.

Who said this of his game, Maxwell Perkins or Adam Rapoport? “I don’t want to say I schooled Hugo, but if he tried to claim that he took me to school, then I’d have a problem with that.” It was Rapoport, dude!

They are guys who preach a certain carefree editorial attitude — or, as Rapoport put it, “You can work hard and play hard.” These are all guys who don’t exactly reflect the tightly wound, hyper-neurotic editor of yesteryear. These guys aren’t New York editor Adam Moss with his wire-framed glasses and metro-wonk affect, or New Yorker editor David Remnick, who may like the sports pages as well as the next dude but spends his nights with Philip Roth and foreign dispatches, or, say, even Daniel Zalewski, the charmingly driven New Yorker features editor who was offered the New York Times Magazine job and turned it down before Lindgren got the job.

“Dan Zalewski — whom I love — is not Mr. Laid Back and neither am I,” said Remnick.

“I’m a firm believer that every good editor — no matter if they’re 25 or 75 — is neurotic,” said Jim Kelly, the former managing editor of Time, adding, “They’re all neurotically dude-ish. It’s taking the coolness to a neurotic level.”

In one respect, Lindgren, Rapoport and Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Josh Tyrangiel — all hired to their posts in the last 18 months — are the latest crop of hot, young-ish editors, all of them in their late 30s and early 40s. They’ve been brought in to reinvent their magazines at a time when magazines need reinvention.

“They’re the next generation,” said Rick Stengel, the managing editor of Time. “I think they’re great editors. They’re not the future — they’re the present. In terms of us figuring everything out, they will be the guys who will figure everything out. Or not.”

And they definitely are a new generation.

“I had never even heard of two of them until six months ago and one of them worked in my building,” said Vanity Fair editor in chief Graydon Carter.

Doctor! You’ve got to be fooling.

“Well, what convinced S.I. Newhouse and [Condé Nast editorial director] Tom Wallace to hire a straight guy from GQ to edit a national mass food magazine that has a large women’s readership?” said Rapoport.

Great question, bro!

All three Dude-itors have kids and are married — but all three project a certain aura of masculine confidence, a swagger that’s in demand these days, a generational cool. Publishers and business side folks need an editor who can see the present, the past and the future. Dude-itors can do that — they’re boys, they’re men, they’re literary, they’re digital. They’re bros who run a magazine, albeit — being the magazine world, after all — slightly sensitive ones who can appeal to both women and men. They are guys who might keep a six-pack in the bottom drawer with the baseball and the moisturizer — the last of which Rapoport does.

“If I can be frank: If you work in this industry, especially glossy magazines, there are a lot of women and a lot of gay men,” said Rapoport. “The notion of being some meathead frat boy working in this business is not very realistic. No disrespect to my friends who are fraternity members!”

“Of course, he was a frat person at Duke,” said Tyrangiel, of Lindgren. Bro, keep it down!

“What I’m surprised at is that the persona that Josh had as a rock critic or a music critic is pretty much the same persona he has as the editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek,” said Kelly, who consulted on bringing Tyrangiel from Time to Bloomberg. “Certainly you would not think that type would have the ambition to run any kind of magazine, let alone Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

“He’s a pretty smooth operator,” said Kelly of Tyrangiel.

“He’s both a bro and dude,” Tyrangiel said, describing Lindgren, who worked for him at BusinessWeek before setting off for the Times. “I don’t think there’s any doubt there. He’s got that sort of relaxed, ‘I’ve been doing this a while and I know how to navigate this’ demeanor. There are people who get very, very tense around deadlines, which are endless. And then there are people who are like, ‘Hey, let’s sort this out so I can get to the gym and get back.’ He’s much more in that realm of I’m going to get a little coffee, I’m going to go to the gym, and then I’ll come back and it’ll all be fine. Then you put in the late hours and it will all be fun. There’s something to be said of people who crank their stereos up with terrible Swedish indie music and make everyone else pretend it’s really good.”

Then there’s Lindgren’s attire. “Dark jeans and a workman’s jacket,” said one Times staffer. “He never is in a jacket and tie. It’s very un-EIC!”

Also, true dudes can jump onto a roof in Italy.

“We rented a house in Italy a few years ago,” recalled Jim Kelly. “Josh came for a few days. And when we came back from lunch, I opened the door and the alarm went off. The only way to fix it was to climb up on the roof. Josh, much to the amazement of my son, jumped on the roof and did some Zorro thing.”

Dudes are digital. Tyrangiel made time.com into something of a machine and Rapoport and Lindgren are happy to express their big-boy status on the Web. Rapoport’s Twitter feed has been a badge of honor to celebrate most things bro. Sample Rapoport tweet: “Nothing more emasculating when the dude at Starbucks gives you one of them bubble tops. ‘Sorry, out of flat lids.’”

Or Lindgren on rocker Ric Ocasek on the Times magazine’s blog, The Sixth Floor: “I love Ocasek. I love his pop songs, and men of my generation hold him in high esteem for marrying the hottest Sports Illustrated swimsuit model of all time.”

You go, Hugo!

Lindgren, perhaps fading into Times-man undude-ishness, declined to comment for this story, saying, “This sounds like fun, but right now is just impossible.”

There were proto Dude-itors, of course: Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko and his buddy, the TV pundit and blog-mogul Dan Abrams — also Dan Peres from his early days at Details.

So what is it about 2011 that’s appealing about a laid-back editor? “There’s an appeal to editors who have their feet on the ground and who have confidence but not an outlandish sort of confidence,” said Glamour editor Cindi Leive. “Swagger — low maintenance swagger — is having a moment.”

“It has to do with a certain metabolism that’s high-rev all the time,” said Jay Lauf, the publisher of The Atlantic. “It makes them that testosterone guy a little bit. You’re a speed junkie.” Lauf pointed to the Atlantic’s senior editor Alexis Madrigal as a guy the business folks are obsessed with. They love his “metabolism.” They love how laid-back he is. They love how tech-savvy he can be.

“He’s that dude,” said Lauf.

Or take Scott Dadich — The Dudich! — the former design director of Wired who has had a meteoric rise into the Condé Nast executive department in the last year as the company moves magazines to the iPad. He’s a guy who throws around “dude” and “man” and who last week was spotted giving a very manly pat-pat-pat on the back of Tyrangiel at the National Magazine Awards.

“In Josh’s case, he’s able to say to people older than he is, ‘Look, relax, I know how to do this. I know how to marry the Web with the magazine,’” said Kelly. “Twenty years ago? If you’re in your 30s you’re not going to tell someone in their 50s, ‘Don’t worry, I know how to do it.’ Now that’s changed.

“We all monkey with copy to draft page to red-lining things when they’re going right out the door,” Tyrangiel said. “Plenty of publishers see that as valuable right now. In doing that, you have to be relaxed. If you’re tense throughout that entire process, if you’re formal throughout that entire process, it’s not going to be very fun with the people that you’re working with.”

Says Bloomberg chief content officer Norm Pearlstine: “Josh is a true dude.”

Fist bump, Norm.

 

[caioherrero]

Nasr story from the magazine:



Samira Nasr Is Harper's BAZAAR's New Editor in Chief

So Nina Garcia will be her boss again? I’ve read at WWD that are rumors of her become editorial director

 

[MissMagAddict]

Anna Wintour admits to 'hurtful and intolerant' behavior at Vogue
Anna Wintour has admitted that Vogue has been “hurtful and intolerant” — and not done enough to promote black staff and designers.

In an emotional note to staff, Wintour wrote: “I want to start by acknowledging your feelings and expressing my empathy towards what so many of you are going through: sadness, hurt, and anger too.

“I want to say this especially to the Black members of our team — I can only imagine what these days have been like. But I also know that the hurt, and violence, and injustice we’re seeing and talking about have been around for a long time. Recognizing it and doing something about it is overdue.”

The note, seen by Page Six, was sent out last Thursday. On Monday, Adam Rapoport, editor-in-chief of Bon Appétit, resigned Monday after a photo of him in brownface surfaced — compounding a race-based controversy over pay equity in Condé Nast’s video division.

The Vogue doyenne and Condé’s artistic director wrote: “I want to say plainly that I know Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators. We have made mistakes too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes.

“It can’t be easy to be a Black employee at Vogue, and there are too few of you. I know that it is not enough to say we will do better, but we will — and please know that I value your voices and responses as we move forward. I am listening and would like to hear your feedback and your advice if you would like to share either.

“I am proud of the content we have published on our site over these past few days but I also know that there is much more work to do. Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with me directly. I am arranging ways we can discuss these issues together candidly, but in the meantime, I welcome your thoughts or reactions.”

Wintour has come under fire from Vogue’s former Editor at Large André Leon Talley in his new memoir, “The Chiffon Trenches,” where he accused her of dumping him for being “too old” and “too fat.”

He also said she failed to thank him for writing an op-ed for the Washington Post praising her September 2018 cover featuring Beyoncé as culturally significant for the black community.

“Not one quick email from Anna Wintour,” he wrote. “Editors I’ve worked with for decades didn’t understand the immense importance of this occasion simply because they are not capable of understanding. None of my contemporaries have seen the world through black eyes.”

In his book, Talley said that one of his first memories of working with Wintour was when Grace Mirabella, the former editor-in-chief of Vogue, dismissed his idea of including an African tribal photograph in a fashion spread with the following comment: “What have I done to deserve this underground influence?” (Mirabella has not commented publicly yet.)

When he complained to Wintour, she told him: “don’t worry about it … just don’t worry about it.”

But Wintour said she is listening now, as she wrote: “This is a historic and heartbreaking moment for our country and it should be a time of listening, reflection, and humility for those of us in positions of privilege and authority. It should also be a time of action and commitments. On a corporate level, work is being done to support organizations in a real way. These actions will be announced as soon as possible.”
source | pagesix

 

[Srdjan]

Ugh! So sick of the thousands of hypocrites like Anna Wintour who popped up recently, elevating their egos by excess morality, mostly on social media, while actually not giving a damn about black/poor/nonconformist lives.

 

[Xone]

I remember almost nothing on Samira’s work at Elle...maybe i’m missing something but in the end i wish she will manage to bring a better HB than Glenda...

 

[Srdjan]

Hungarian Cosmo is closed, or to be more precise, only existent as a website. Judging from their editor's post on Instagram, it seems that more editions around the world are to do the same soon.

 

[KoV]

Ugh! So sick of the thousands of hypocrites like Anna Wintour who popped up recently, elevating their egos by excess morality, mostly on social media, while actually not giving a damn about black/poor/nonconformist lives.

US Vogue has made a very clear effort to increase diversity in its pages for the past few years. Three Black women have been on the cover so far this year and Black models and models of color have a very significant presence in editorials as well. I’ve seen them recently highlighting Black artists and fashion designers, too. I get that in this climate Anna might come off as posturing, but from my perspective she’s been putting her money where her mouth is, for years, when it comes to the contents of Vogue. And keep in mind she sent this note 5 days before the Rapoport + unequal pay scandal, not as a response to it.

Now as far as poor people go, it’s hard to imagine a magazine whose existence depends on its ability to market fashion and accessory items that cost far more than your average American earns in a month even broaching the subject in a way that wouldn’t be almost inherently hypocritical. But I believe do-gooders, political figures, and socially-conscious brands are highlighted by Vogue. The exposure helps those people/brands do good for the underprivileged. It’s indirect but I think it helps. And frankly, I don’t want to read about poverty in Vogue. Their expertise is fashion, beauty, and to a lesser extent culture. I wouldn’t go to the grocery store to buy shoes and I wouldn’t buy read Vogue for their hot take on Portland’s homeless population. There are many other magazines, and news outlets better suited to doing so.