Remember, remember, the 15th of November. The world of media gigs spins, and with it, our heads. How are New York Magazine, Mediaite, Business Insider, CNN, and Gawker Media intricately tied together today? If you get motion sickness easily, well, you probably shouldn’t be reading this on a moving vehicle. Press Clips, Day 21, Manic Monday Media Moves Madness Edition, here we go. CORRECTION/UPDATED.
So, today’s Media Moves look like this:
Edmund Lee at AdAge breaks the news that contributing New York editor Will Leitch goes to Yahoo to write about movies. Leitch confirms on his blog. Meanwhile, Yahoo reports that top-notch media reporter Steve Krakauer of Mediaite is hired by CNN to work on Piers Morgan’s new show.
Now, why are these such insane, head-spinning moves? They say a lot about where power is shifting right now:
Conclusions?
1. New York Magazine is losing hiring and retention power. Chalk this up to Lindgren’s departure — and the length of time it was percolating for — and the media economy thawing out.
2. Gawker Media editors remain strong forces in the media job market, but aren’t immune to returning to the roost from more mainstream gigs. Don’t forget that in addition to Cook and Coen, Joel Johnson also returned to Gizmodo recently in an Editor-at-Large position basically crafted for him, and Richard Lawson returned to Gawker.com last year from a stint at TV Guide‘s website.
3. Mediaite’s trying to keep up with big-name turnaround by bringing on big names despite new hires lacking significant online reporting experience. Do with that what you will, but it doesn’t sound like a completely sound strategy, does it? Is Joyella gonna be able to keep up with the SEO-sharpshooting Mediaite editors have constantly been given as operating dictums? You probably could’ve scored two young, hungry bloggers who can pump out 14 posts a day for one Joyella, who doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy with an appetite for that kind of thing. We’ll see how it plays out.
Anyway, if your head’s spinning, it should be. It’s getting harder and harder to keep track of who’s going where, and What It All Means, if anything at all (which I’m naturally willing to suggest it does; prove me wrong). One thing’s for sure, though:
The Great Thaw is Real.
CORRECTION/UPDATE: An earlier draft of this post noted that Will Leitch was leaving NY Mag unequivocally. That was an oversight. He’ll still be contributing to New York. Regret the error, and apologies. That said, doesn’t that put Leitch in direct competition with NYM? I also neglected to mention Edith Zimmerman leaving NYM’s Vulture for The Hairpin – making her another NYM writer who left to go write for a ladyblog – owned by The Awl, run by two Gawker Media alums, Alex Balk and Choire Sicha. Sicha also (like Coen, Johnson, Lawson, and Cook) at one point returned for a second run with the company. Also, former Vulture editor Mark Graham was another Gawker Media alum on the move, as he, too, ran Defamer at one point.
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We’re not done yet, today. More later. As always, thank you for your continued support of Press Clips.
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