Editor & Publisher Magazine

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 4:58pm on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

January 19, 2010 -- Former Editor & Publisher editor Greg Mitchell writes at the Huffington Post about how he lost his job:

"Since I took over eight years ago, the magazine, which had been on the verge of closing under the weight of million-dollar annual loses, had rebounded strongly, earning nice profits (until last year), achieving a wide audience and newfound influence on the Web (which I pushed for), and winning more top awards than virtually any other "trade" magazine for its print edition, for stories ranging from circulation declines to poor coverage of the run-up to the Iraq war.

So it was a bit puzzling last Thursday afternoon when a Twitter feed indicated that new stories were going up on E&P's shuttered web site. It didn't take long for my email box at home to start filling up with media queries -- was it true E&P was back in business? Congrats and all that. I told them: damned if I know. Might have just been a glitch. It was impossible that a sale could have gone through without me knowing about it. But the stories kept going up.

Finally, about three hours later, I got a call at home from Duncan McIntosh, the publisher of Boating World and FishRap News and front-runner for the takeover, who confirmed that the contracts for the sale had been signed but unfortunately I would not be part of the re-launch. "We want to move in a different direction," he said. On three occasions previously, in person and over the phone, he had hailed my "great work" at the magazine and said, "I certainly want to retain you going forward." Now I was out, along with the great Joe Strupp, senior editor and staff writer.

That meant that the magazine would lose the two staffers who had been responsible for roughly 80% of the magazine's news-making and traffic-driving "scoops" over the past several years -- at a time when Web impact needs to be expanded."

The full story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/how-i-lost-my-job_b_428008.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 2:47pm on Friday, January 15th, 2010

Editor & Publisher Sold, Back in Business

E&P reported on January 14, 2010:

"Editor & Publisher, the only independent news organization reporting on all aspects of the transforming newspaper business, has resumed publication in print and online following its sale Thursday to Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc., the Irvine, Calif.-based magazine and newspaper publisher.

The announcement came exactly two weeks after the closing of E&P, the acknowledged "bible of the newspaper industry," which can trace its roots back 126 years.

Duncan McIntosh said he knew immediately when Nielsen announced in December the closing of E&P that he wanted to keep the magazine and its digital newsgathering properties going.

"Such a critical information source for a newspaper industry so desperately in need of help should not go away," McIntosh said. "I've
been a reader of E&P over the course of 30 years and know its incredible value to readers and advertisers."

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed."

The full story:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004059427

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 1:50pm on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

How Things Should Have Gone For Newspapers, as reported by Steve Outing of Editor & Publisher on December 29, 2009:

"In the mid-1990s, had you asked me to project 15 years ahead, I would have suggested that newspaper print editions would get overtaken in usage by online and digital replacements, and that primarily the older generations would still be reading on paper. Actually, that's why I chose the name of this column, "Stop The Presses!", back in 1995. It felt right, both hearkening to the past and foretelling the future. My E&P editors in 1995 were savvy enough to get the joke, and overlook the possibility that some E&P readers might take offense at what my column's name implied.

Back to the present, I've decided to end this column with two lists:
1. How things should have gone for the newspaper industry.
2. Since they didn't go that way, what to expect next."

The full story:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/stopthepresses_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004055669

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 11:46am on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

December 28, 2009 -- Editor & Publisher editor blogs about what might be E&P's final issue:

"At 2 p.m. today we ship the possibly final issue of Editor & Publisher from our office here at Astor Place in NYC. For the record, it is the January 2010 issue, so we made it into our 126th year, at least.

As many may know, we got our inexplicable closing notice from the Nielsen Co. on December 10, which was met by outrage, thousands of supportive messages and even an unlikely place on the Twitter trending list. Staffers decided to stay on to finish that issue and keep our Web site going until the end of the year in hopes of encouraging outside help and bids for a takeover.

Indeed, there has been a lot of interest but no firm news to report as yet. We are scheduled to vacate and shut down for good by the end of Thursday if nothing materializes, though of course E&P could always be brought back a bit later. Stay tuned, contact me about anything you can do, and thanks again for your backing and kind words."

The full story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/ep-enters-what-may-be-its_b_404858.html