Si Newhouse

Last night, Charlie Rose welcomed Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter to his PBS talk show to talk about his magazine's 25th anniversary issue and companion book.

After an extremely enthusiastic introduction (inside voice, please, Charlie!), the two cover a lot of ground from the journalism to art and photography to documentaries to his new baby to what movie is Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse's all time favorite. (Is it D.O.A. or The Searchers?)

A self-deprecating Mr. Carter told Mr. Rose that he lacks a "core competence" and that his greatest accomplishment has been keeping his job at the magazine for the last sixteen and half years. He also hints at writing some sort of memoir one day.

What is happening to newspapers in New Jersey over the last few months? The New York Times has emptied out its Newark and Trenton bureaus; The Bergen Record, as former senator Bob Torricelli likes to remind us, is shutting down its Hackensack headquarters. The Newhouses announced The Star-Ledger has to cut 200 bodies, or it will sell the paper (or maybe it'll just do it anyway--JP Morgan has been brought on as a consultant for the sale).

In any event, here's the memo that Star-Ledger publisher George Arwady sent to the newsroom this morning. Sometimes publishers hedge the doomsday stuff. Mr. Arwady not so much.  read more »

The Star-Ledger announced today that 200 non-unionized employees will have to take a buyout by Oct. 1. If the total is not met, the Newhouses' Advance Publications is threatening to sell the newspaper. Reporters are not unionized, according to a source close to the paper.

"There are quite a few reporters—some who have been there their whole career—who will be gone by Oct. 1," said the source. "Most of them weren't planning on leaving until this morning."

Prior to this morning, it had been a typically strong week for the paper. Since July 20, The Star-Ledger has been rolling out a hard-hitting investigative series that examined the shady financing practices of the Rutgers University Athletic Department.  read more »

Earlier today, Media Mob looked at Richard Pérez-Peña's New York Times Sunday Business article about Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse.

In that article, Mr. Pérez-Peña noted:

Last year, Condé introduced one of its most expensive new titles, Portfolio, its first business magazine, which company executives predict will lose $150 million or more before breaking even in four to five years.

The price tag for Porfolio just keeps going up, apparently. In April 2007, New York Magazine's Mark Fass wrote, that the magazine had "a reported budget of $125 million, it’s the most expensive launch Condé Nast has ever done."

Previously, the quote had been $100 million.  read more »

The most interesting thing in Richard Perez-Pena's 3,330 word write-around profile of Si Newhouse is the language from Condé Nast executives about the importance of the Web.

• Tom Wallace, editorial director, Condé Nast: “You’re going to have to go a long way on the Internet to compete with the way we produce words and images in the magazines."
• Steve Newhouse, chariman of Advance.net: “What we’re not doing is trying to turn those companion sites into large Web destinations. They’re there to support the magazines.”
• Jonathan Newhouse, head of Condé Nast international: “I think sometimes commentators throw around these assumptions about what is happening to the industry, going the way of newspapers, and I don’t believe it.
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A little after 6 p.m. at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Condé Nast president Richard Beckman was sharing a drink—vodka, olives—with Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend. The two were discussing the same thing everyone in the lobby of Jazz at Lincoln Center at the Time Warner Center was talking about: What the National Magazine Awards can do, or not do, for a magazine.  read more »

It's on the record now.

Condé Nast editorial director Tom Wallace gave the company's loudest and most forceful public support for Joanne Lipman, the editor of Portfolio. In a story in today's Women's Wear Daily written by Stephanie Smith, Wallace says the following: that the company "love[s]" Joanne Lipman; that she's an "ingenious" editor; that she's absolutely safe in her job; that the company is "extremely pleased" with the magazine.  read more »

Freelance Fizzle!  read more »

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Si Newhouse's plan for a new skyscraper on the far West Side with Douglas Durst is dead in the water, but is there something else out there?

Conde Nast C.O.O. John Bellando sent out an internal email this morning reassuring employees that all hope isn't lost. At least for a new skyscraper somewhere. Here's the memo:  read more »

So that new skyscraper that Si Newhouse was hoping for? It appears dead.  read more »

Last night, at Columbia's journalism school, Joanne Lipman said that three years ago she got a call from Si Newhouse. She met with him, had lunch, and loved the conversation so much she would have been perfectly satisfied with her life even if she'd been struck by a truck on her way out the door of his apartment building.  read more »

Looks like the biggest Manhattan real estate battle in years is shaping up to be the biggest media battle too.

As The Observer reported today, Rupert Murdoch has joined up with the real estate heavyweight The Related Companies, according to a source, in its bid for the Hudson Yards project on the far West Side of Manhattan. If the Related Companies wins the billion-dollar-plus bid, it would have the right to develop on land currently owned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation would move its offices from 1211 Avenue of the Americas to an area in the West 30s along 11th Avenue.

Meanwhile, Conde Nast chief S.I. Newhouse is prepared to flee 4 Times Square for a new office tower in Hudson Yards as well...  read more »

It's hard to evaluate the news coming from Keith Kelly's Media Ink column in The New York Post about Conde Nast chief Si Newhouse's Wednesday meeting with Joanne Lipman, editrix of Portfolio.

The splashy $100 million project is the object of some Schadenfreude, though the Schaden-part has always been difficult to pin down.  read more »

Condé Nast's bulky Portfolio makes a lightweight debut.  read more »

Just weeks ago, Portfolio staffers could only communicate under double super secret background (Matt Cooper, natch).

But as this weekend's storm reached Biblical proportions in New York City--Genesis? Yikes!--came the first glimmer of Portfolio.com.

And now with today's print launch, the Conde Nast, no-talking-in-the-cafeteria gag order has been briefly lifted, letting in a gaggle of media reporters: Kit, Irin, Friedman, and Keith Kelly. Dylan is around, too, but only as a talking head for ABC News.

All this and there's not even a glitzy launch party to reward hard-working media reporters. Instead, the Portfolio gang will toast one another tonight at the Beaver Bar.