A tipster tells us that there have been "dozens" of layoffs at Reader's Digest yesterday and today (and maybe for the past couple of weeks too, we hear now), possibly involving the outsourcing of the mag's web department. [Related: The company's bankrupt, and looking to move to cheaper headquarters.] Know more? Email us.
UPDATE: One of the laid off staffers tells us, "Everyone is basically gone. The top web person resigned yesterday...the other was laid off." The employee says there are as few as three people left running the RD website now.
UPDATE 2: We got this email from William Adler, VP of communications at Reader's Digest:

Reader's Digest recently (not this week; a few weeks ago) ADDED about a dozen staffers in digital at readersdigest.com... did not "lose" any; it's the exact opposite of what you wrote...

and there was / is no outsourcing... readersdigest.com is staffing up, and is going great guns with traffic, advertising, etc.

The digital staffers came to RD as part of a realignment of the CORPORATE digital group... as responsibilities for branded websites have been moving into the businesses. Highest profile among those who transferred from corporate to Reader's Digest was Jonathan Hills, who was promoted to General Manager, readersdigest.com — which we announced a couple of weeks back. Some digital staff also moved into Food & Entertaining, specifically to work in Taste of Home and our digital advertising group.

The corporate Web team is focusing on driving RDA's digital Center of Excellence and applying technology to build audience, profits and revenues. The corporate web team had a small number of layoffs at the time that staff transferred into the business divisions (not this week), effectively reducing its total size. The corporate team continues to be very important to the company's growth strategy and now reports directly to Amy Radin, our Chief Marketing Officer, and they are part of her global plan. Key Web heads in the business units have a dotted line report to Radin.

There are about 20 people on the corporate digital team now.

How soon will the layoffs be coming at Conde Nast? Maybe next week at some magazines, maybe weeks or months down the road at other magazines, according to John Koblin. So you really don't know when you might go! Always fear, Nasties.


The Village Voice has a long cover story this week about the newspaper industry in New York City, which we'll sum up as: It still exists. But it's getting smaller.


Another perspective, from the NY Post, a newspaper: The newspaper industry is back! Gannett's earnings are higher than expected, so investors are piling in to newspaper stocks. Upside: They're cheap! Downside: They will get cheaper. Just you wait. Just you wait.

[Additional reporting by Hunter Walker!]

There are still some blind spots—our searches didn't turn up any coverage of Norman Mailer's 1969 campaign or the Stonewall riots, which the Voice dubbed "the Great Faggot Rebellion" at the time. And there's not much on Rudy Giuliani's mayoral bid. There is this hilarious 1956 farewell column from Norman Mailer after he got fed up with all the typos Voice editors were inserting into his copy, but there doesn't seem to be a way to link to it:

Voice editor Tony Ortega recommends an Andrew Sarris profile of Herve Villechaise; we recommend James Wolcott trying to argue in 1975 that New Wave was fundamentally a conservative movement. Good times.

Full disclosure: The Village Voice does too still matter, because your blogger's wife works there. But still—nothing is what it used to be.

The last person to write an item here tagged with Ortega's name on the site? Oh, you guessed it: Ian ("Village Voice Continues To Collapse," March 29, 2008). Notes Ortega,

"Normally, we would contact Gawker for some sort of comment on this kind of thing. But in this case, it seems best to post first and ask questions later — hey, just like Gawker does it!"

Harsh. Nah, but really, aren't old crunchy media people funny? They still believe in nonsense like paper goods, and that people still think inner-media buttfuckery is worth reading or writing about. Sigh. This is a throwaway item. And no, Ortega, we're not giving you the link. Our readers can Google it if they want.

Update (Not Really): Fine, Tony, we'll give you the twenty hits you'll get from this. You could probably use 'em.

Former Gawker Writer Bemoans The No-Benefits Denton Plan [Dr. Tony Ortega's Sing-a-Long Blog]

Staffers at the New Times rag are apparently freaking the hell out and leaving faster than management can fire them. Is Michael Musto safe? Is... ok, that's it for people we know who still actually work at the Village Voice. Someone just check on Musto, k?

(Ironically a Voice music blogger was just mocking the swine flu earlier this week—and now an intern has succumbed! This is why some of us never go into the office!)

Update: Voice editor calls off the panic:

Our intern turns out not to have swine flu. He called to apologize and said that another intern may have misinterpreted what he told her about his condition. Please resume normal levels of PANIC.

A tipster tells us that the 600 layoffs at Time Inc. aren't over yet: "Time Consumer Marketing's Promotions department axed 7 people yesterday." DO IT FASTER, Time Inc. Sheesh.

Your new FCC head will be Julius Genachowski, a Harvard Law classmate of Obama's who's worked at the FCC before, as well as at IAC Corp, and was considered the frontrunner for the job. He'll be in charge of managing the national switch to digital TV. See how boring FCC stories are when they're not about crazy right-wing ideologues? [Reuters]


Last September there was a rumor Al Gore might buy do-gooder environmental magazine Plenty. That turned out to be wrong, and then their funding fell through, and now the magazine is folding. Sad. [Folio]


Lynn Yaeger, the very popular painted-doll-style fashion writer who just got laid off from the Village Voice after 30 years, landed a gig blogging for New York magazine during fashion week. Christ, it's gotten so bad that we're talking about 30 year vets "landing" a "gig" for a week. And interpreting it as good news. Just your daily reminder that the job market is horrible. [NYO]


Times-hating New York Press founder Russ Smith interviews Spy founder Kurt Andersen about the media and politics. If you have the fortitude to read this please report in the comments. [SpliceToday.com]

Wacky media story of the day: a startup called The Printed Blog will distribute free, twice-daily newspapers consisting of printed posts from local blogs in cities across the country. “Why hasn’t anyone tried to take the best content and bring it offline?” asks founder Joshua Karp. Well Joshua, because by doing so you eliminate all the cost efficiencies of publishing online in the first place, and should you be economically successful via an advertising model, you will instantly generate demands for payment from your unpaid blogger content providers, thereby fucking up your revenue stream, but we look forward to following your new business' inevitable spiral in one direction or the other. We won't say which. [Wired]

During the Q&A at America Anonymous author Benoit Denizet-Lewis' book party (hosted at a booze-free "sober living loft") someone asked whether whether being a sex addict made it, er, complicated to report on "Down Low" culture. Benoit's response, we heard, was uncomfortable.

Young hotshot Patrick Gavin, who runs Fishbowl DC, is going to Politico. He is the DC version of Neel Shah, except Neel lives in NYC and went to nightclubs with cool people so much he landed at P6, and Patrick is in DC so he goes to cocktail parties with political nerds and wears a blazer. And does not sell magic berries. [Politico]



A tipster tells us about a new push for buyouts at the now basically online-only Christian Science Monitor and if the buyouts don't come, the editor warns in a memo: "The regrettable reality, however, is that there is no way to meet our budget goal other than to reduce the staff. We estimate the reduction to be 15-16 positions (it could be more or fewer, depending on salary levels)." Our tipster adds, "this seems to [management's] attempt to push out the oldest; if it doesn't work, we (the younger folks) will all likely be sacked, because the monitor never fires anyone who's been there more than a decade. call it compassion, of a sort."

The traditional January round of layoffs-and-other-unexpected-occurrences at Conde Nast hasn't materialized yet. Probably because they just did that two months ago. So it will be at least another month before massive layoffs return. [NYO]

Life & Style's latest cover is one of those diet stories about how celebrities shed pounds. Their cover girls are Jessica Alba, in a photo by Mario Testino that was airbrushed before it went into a Campari calendar, and Britney Spears, in a photo our tipster tells us was taken in 2003 by Andrew Eccles. So, Photoshop and time travel, those are the ways stars lose weight.

The horrifically troubled New York Times has a new signup procedure for free employee backrubs. Presumably given by laid-off bankers. [Nytpicker]


Nat Hentoff works the phrase "He puts on his skunk suit and heads off to the garden party" into his final column. [VV]

Hentoff wrote about jazz and then a civil liberties column. Former Voicer Tricia Romano reports he's been laid off along with Lynn Yaeger,a fashion writer at the paper for more than three decades.

A tipster tells us a third layoff, Chloe Hillard, was the Voice's last black writer. Hired by current editor Tony Ortega in 2007, she has written about Brooklyn lesbians and rappers Remy Ma and Fabolous [sic].

At least everyone made it through Christmas in blissful ignorance before getting fired. Oh wait, Hentoff is Jewish. Well, at least he made it off the sinking Voice before the New Year. Will it even be around by New Year's Day, 2010?

The article isn't online yet, but here's a taste from the little summary sent out by the magazine's P.R. department:

"The Village Voice was originally conceived as a living, breathing attempt to demolish the notion that one needs to be a professional to accomplish something in a field as purportedly technical as journalism," Dan Wolf, the editor of the Voice, wrote in the introduction to "The Village Voice Reader," in 1962. Similarly, as critics and columnists were permitted to inject themselves into their writing, Menand writes, the Voice showed that one could disrespect the journalistic idols of impersonality and objectivity and still sell newspapers. Norman Mailer's columns for the paper were "unprofessional on purpose: like Wolf, he wanted to poke his finger in the eye of objectivity and expertise," Menand says. "What Mailer learned at the Voice was the literary value of leading with your personality. He never forgot it."

Hey, what does sound like? Menand makes the comparison crystal clear: "more than other magazines and newspapers, the Voice was doing what the Internet does now long before there was an Internet. The Voice was the blogosphere . . . and Craigslist fifty years before their time."

"The Voice Was the Original Blog" may be the only way to explain to a generation whose memory only goes back to the days when the Voice was a thick and tired tabloid filled with predictably leftist polemics, escort ads, classifieds and movie listings. The vibrancy disappeared long before the business model.

The original formula Menand celebrates is basically the same one that blogs — you're reading one right now! — want to replicate. It can be summed up as this: attitude is cheap, reporting is expensive. When Britton Hadden and Henry Luce started Time magazine in 1923, it wasn't much more than rewriting New York Times clips in an idiosyncratic diction. The New Yorker launched in 1925 as a humor magazine for young Manhattanites that reveled in its insider-y tone. When advertising and circulation grew — and editorial budgets increased — these publications quickly dropped their finger-in-the-eye-of-the-establishment pose and signed up for full membership.

The Voice tried too. Menand notes of cartoonist Jules Feiffer's early works:

Feiffer's characters were sometimes business types and politicians, but they were also sometimes caricatures of the sort of people one would imagine to be Voice readers—beatniks, lounge lizards, modern dancers. The Voice was the medium through which a mainstream middle-class readership stayed in touch with its inner bohemian. It was the ponytail on the man in the gray flannel suit."

He explains New York wanted to see his "interesting closet" for a feature on closets but then backed out. They asked for multiple quotes and comments and never used them. Then, they gave him an assignment that the subject refused to do.

We think we see the problem here. Musto is too well-known—he's been a media/downtown fixture for years—and perhaps making himself too available. Thus, everyone lazily sees him as an easy go-to person for quotes and anecdotes, a "just in case we can't get Taylor Momsen" type of backup guy. Musto needs to cultivate a more mysterious, "I don't do press" persona. Editors will be panting over what they can't have in no time.

• Rodale, the publisher of Men's Health and other fitness-related mags, is laying off 111 employees—10% of its workforce. Most of the cuts will be in "operations, IT, customer service and some publishing departments," with no details given.
• The Seattle Times is laying off about 130 workers, 10% of its staff. No word on how many in the newsroom. The Seattle Times is a newspaper so, you know, this is just how it goes.
• Out Traveler, a gay travel mag, has just folded, according to Jossip.
• Finally, just how bad a shape is the Village Voice in? They've laid off so many people in the past year that I won't take the time to link to all of our layoff posts, but feel free to go back and search for yourself. Anyhow, a tipster tells us that the VV is—direct quote—"on the balls of its ass financially." That's bad! How bad? We hear that expense accounts are essentially a thing of the past. One VV reporter paid out of his own pocket to fly to Ohio and rent a car and a hotel room last week to do a story on the election. Normal after-work events, like a going-away party for an intern at a bar, are being paid out of the editors' own pockets. And, we hear, Voice reporters have been buying their own pens and notebooks because the paper has no extra office supplies. That's bad. If you know more about the finances of the VV or the New Times chain, email us.

Whew. [Pic via Martin Gee]

Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason tried to put a positive spin on the move as one that will allow the company to reorganize safely without hurting quality:

The move does contain good news for editorial departments in the chain. Eason announced that cuts to edit staffs at all the papers would be rolled back but stressed that all the papers should proceed with “Web-first” publishing strategies, in which writers and editors customize their content for the Internet and subsequently transfer that content into their print products.

Hmm. So the print editions will be old versions of the website? Alt-weeklies are in a tough place. They're being squeezed by the internet on virtually every front, particularly in large, cosmopolitan cities that have a lot of blog competition and heavy Craigslist use.

As for the Village Voice , we hear that it may have some layoffs coming in the very near future. We have a call in to the Voice. If you know the facts, email us.

Project Runway was a big hit on the Bravo network. But Weinstein decided to move the show to Lifetime, which agreed to up his cut to around $1 million per episode. He also screwed Bravo by lining up sponsors for the show on his own, which precluded the network from selling ads to other companies in the same categories. Weinstein even ended up favoring a Wal-Mart placement on the show over a Macy's one, proving he wasn't in it for taste.

Still, the show is a hit, and a cash cow. Project Runway has been successful enough to demand that fashion magazines like Elle and Marie Claire pay for the privilege of being featured on the show. Hardcore media hardball.

And a treasure trove of new evidence dug out of Weinstein's trash can by the Village Voice's Tony Ortega shows that the mogul himself is closely involved in the show's sponsorship choices. An email from a former Weinstein Co. employee shows the calculating negotiation process:

"I wish there was more time. Twc [The Weinstein Company] has already gone to great lengths with new partner at lifetime to not only secure both categories for you but also to be flexible toward loreal in coming up with an alternative for you on their packaging of [seasons] six + seven. Unfortunately, due to filming of season five and tresemme's feeling that they are being iced out of season 6, there just is not more time to give. As you know, season five commences in days...twc is now at risk that tresemme will pull out of season 5, which puts twc at risk for 1.1m [$1.1 million]. Carol is welcome to call hw [Harvey Weinstein] or me, but the deadline has to remain at close of business tuesday for loreal to decide on hair category for [Project Runway]/models for season 6 and structure of [seasons] 7/8. I would additionally say that the whole reason we are to this point is a result of the relationship! Without the relationship and the history, l'oreal would not have the opportunity to even engage in the opportunity to obtain the hair category."

Good thing they have such a good relationship! Or this sponsorship thing would really be nasty. And here's how much the company is expected to cough up to Weinstein in order to have its goop featured on the faaabulous production:

"Hw - if you get a call from carol hamilton it will be regarding [Project Runway] season 6 and beyond. I've imposed a tuesday, close of business deadline for them to commit to hair category in addition to make up. They have two choices: 1) Take both hair and make up for [$2 million] plus [$1 million] to twc (no split) for season 6 and [$2 million] for hair and makeup for season 7 plus [$1 million] to twc for a total of [$6 million]. 2) Commit to season 6 only for [$2 million] hair/make up plus [$1 million] to twc] and then by 3rd episode must pick up both season 7 + 8 for a total of [$8 million] (but must take additional [$1 million] to twc regardless) They have asked for additional time and I have declined that citing tresemme and season 5 which starts shooting shortly. Call me if you have questions. Best, lori"

A mogul's life: not so different from a used car salesman. Buy now! There's a guy on his way here right this minute to take it off my hands if you don't want it.....

[VV; pic via NY Mag]

The city has shut down all but two bathhouses and every known sex club in Manhattan, as well as citing bars, clubs, and private parties where inspectors find any men-on-men action. The few entrepreneurs still out there complain about apathy and different priorities among younger gay men.

"These things are ending because people don't want them anymore," [naughty-party organizer Daniel Nardicio] says. "People are spoiled, petulant, uninteresting. I've been throwing outrageous parties again and again for years, but the only time I was busted was at the Slide."

Other theories posited for the steep decline of raunchy sex parties: gays fighting for their right to marry and serve openly in the military rather than party, coming out is "easier than ever" (is it??), and gays are not as "marginalized" in society.

Maybe everyone should spend the next few years working on their careers, until the pendulum inevitably swings back in the other direction.

Village Voice

[Village Voice cover outtake by Nikola Tamindzic of Home of the Vain]