Si Won't Air-Condition Fairchild Stepkids?
Jesse · 06/02/06 11:55AMThis showed up in the inbox last night, and, while we can't quite believe it's true, we're also a touch intrigued:
This showed up in the inbox last night, and, while we can't quite believe it's true, we're also a touch intrigued:
Women's Wear Daily's Memo Pad — one of the city's leading media-gossip columns — is sometimes derided as the Conde Nast School Paper, a comment on the (probably unavoidable) prevalence of news about its corporate owner, which just happens to be one of the biggest mag companies. Sometimes, though, you can learn the most interesting things from an in-house rag.
• As Fairchild is integrated into Conde Nast, portraits of the Fairchilds go, a fancy cafeteria arrives, and garlic is banned. [NYO]
• Absolute mag might live again, that to Realtor William B. May. At the very least, the already-completed next issue will be distributed. Oh, and that trademark thing the Post was all worried about last week? Not a big deal, May says. [NYP (second item)]
• ABC's Bob Woodruff still has a face for TV, his brother reports. The talking for TV? Less so. [NYDN]
• Judy Miller admits she was wrong! OK, the other Judy Miller, and about moving to New York. [Romenesko]
• Maer Roshan delays your plane. [Media Mob/NYO]
About a month ago, Fairchild Publications — the Newhouse publishing division behind W, WWD, Jane, Details, and all your favorite rag-trade trade pubs — sent a company-wide email reminding staffers of its prohibition on holiday-time gifts from "clients and contacts." But Fairchild is being merged into Newhouse's glitzy and glossy Conde Nast umbrella, and that's creating an interestingly dichotomous Christmas season. Emails a Fairchild friend:
After all the stink we made about uber-editor Jane Pratt leaving Jane and being replaced by Brandon Holley, we still didn't really care enough to follow up and see how the "new" Jane would look (adult ADD, man). So we picked up the January issue the other day, and maybe it's too soon to tell, but we're not detecting any major differences, other than wee aesthetic ones, under Holley's reign. We did, however, notice an interesting little sidebar on the letters page, which was for the November issue (and Pratt's last):
One day after the big Conde Nast-is-all-one-company announcement — which, when it broke, seemed to have few practical effects beyond some title changes and new letterhead designs — the first shoe drops. The Conde Nast division once and still known as Fairchild Publications said this afternoon that it will shutter Vitals Men and Vitals Women, the shopping magazine launched a year ago and sixth months ago, respectively, and which always seemed a touch redundant with Conde's Cargo and Lucky.
They're getting so used to moving publishers around at Si Newhouse's magazine companies that now they can do it virtually in their sleep. Chris Mitchell, publisher of Details since April 2004, quit Wednesday to go make furniture. Already there's a replacement: Paul Jowdy, who's moving from the associate publisher position at Vanity Fair.
• CBS News's search to save the Evening News hits a milestone: The network has started doing prototype episodes. [NYT]
• Should Jane become Brandon? If the advertisers have their way, yup. [WSJ]
• Jack Shafer stands up for the LES druggies. Because, damn it, someone's got to. [Slate]
• The Washington Post gets new gossip columnists, and we get to hold onto our beloved, slutty big sister. [Washingtonian]
Oh, how quickly we replace the ones we love. Just weeks after Jane founder Jane Pratt announced her retirement, Fairchild has found a replacement. Ladies and ladies (okay, maybe 2 or 3 gents care), meet your new Jane editor, Ms. Brandon Holley. 38 years young, Holley comes from the top editorial throne of ELLEgirl and enjoys surfing, horesback riding, and drag racing in New Jersey. No, seriously — she's just that "Jane."
We've known for a few weeks that a very pregnant Heidi Klum would be on the cover of September's Vitals Woman. What we didn't learn until today is that inside the magazine — copies of which are starting to float around the Newhouse empire — there's a very pregnant, very naked Heidi Klum. Our source on this is very sure, very reliable, and, it seems, very, very excited. We're not on the team that shares his enthusiasm about such things, but we're still curious to see.
With the usual disclaimers that we have no idea whether this actually true or not, we present an email that recently arrived in our inbox. It's Si Newhouse's take on the forthcoming premiere issue of Cookie, the who-knew-we-needed-such-a-thing shopping-for-babies mag headed soon to a newsstand near you. All we can say is that the source is impeccable, the chain of custody intact, and the plausibility factor high: