Church Cuddles Up to State: Media's Glossy New Reality
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Off the Record
In 2005 things took a turn for Mr. Essex. He was hired to be editor in chief of a magazine called Absolute—one of those shiny luxury publications that straddle the line between advertisements and editorial and leave the reader (flipping through it idly in a shiny luxury condo lobby, perhaps) feeling glazed and hollow, not sure exactly why. The gig was short-lived. And a year later he decided to leave the field altogether. Mr. Essex, 43, is now CEO of Droga5, a boutique ad agency.
In a way, given today’s media climate, this career trajectory makes perfect sense. Mr. Essex is still working with ideas and concepts, after all. “What is an editor’s role?” he said rhetorically the other day. “Is it to fix some semicolons? Or go out and sell some fucking ads?”
It’s ugly out there in the magazine world: titles shuttering, meager profits, no one talking excitedly about starting the next Spy. And yet … in September, a fat stack of very pretty publications will launch, with heavy paper stock, big perfectly bound spines, and shiny pictures of spinnakers and gourmet chocolate. The Wall Street Journal will launch its new business magazine, WSJ.; The Washington Post will introduce its own glossy about fashion, FW; the Los Angeles Times will reintroduce its magazine under the aegis of the publishing side. Also: A company called Modern Luxury will begin a bimonthly magazine, Manhattan. Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of a downturn.
“Anyone who has a pulse knows that the long-term prognosis for print is troubled,” said Mr. Essex. “Luxury books are the one thing immune to this.”
“If you look at the industries that are doing well, certainly luxury is the top-top end of the business market, and the top-top consumer continues to spend,” said Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio, the publisher of WSJ. “Our economy has grown so much through the luxury space that it just makes sense that there is more of a highlight on that sector in [publishing] as well.”
The New York Times was at the forefront of the trend in 2004 when it first published T: The New York Times Style Magazine, which has become the embattled company’s cash cow. While profits at the paper continue to shrink, ad pages at T, which Mr. Essex praised as “the best-done luxury book,” grew 12 percent last year, and revenues increased 9 percent to $45.7 million in 2007, from $41.8 million in 2005. Earlier this year, chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. awarded T with The Times’ prized internal honor, the Punch Sulzberger Award, because, as he put in a memo, “It has become a “compelling advertising proposition for traditional and new customers, as well as an engaging read for astute audiences around the world.”
These compelling advertising propositions are where the jobs are. Scores of editors and assistants are fleeing 4 Times Square and the Hearst Tower, draining talent from somewhat less overtly ad-baiting places like Men’s Vogue, Maxim, Lucky, Domino, InStyle, House & Garden.
“Fifteen years ago, the experience of employees I had to hire was very limited,” said Jason Binn, the CEO of Niche Media, which publishes the established luxury magazines Gotham and Hamptons. “Now if you look at people from Condé Nast, or Hachette, or The New York Times, a lot of them have moved into this category of employment. Now we’re constantly having these bigger companies trying to hire our staff. And vice versa.”
And the traditional, cozily amorphous job of the editor—rumpled visionary, bold procurer, acid social critic, lover of words!—is starting to look very different. Sort of...crisper.
“You’re looking at the inevitable loss of print ad revenue,” Mr. Essex said. “The editor’s role is to figure out where the ad revenue is to keep a book alive. That is the primary function of the editor. It is not to massage semicolons. Now some people at ASME or Mr. Ross or Mr. Shawn may vomit at that statement, but it’s better than not having any book at all. I’m talking about shrewd recognition of what world we live in.”
‘EDITORS ARE GREAT’
As envisioned by businesspeople, the New Editor seems a kind of bland, affable and well-connected creature … much like, well, a businessperson. Next Page >
Unfortunately for Mr. Essex and contrary to the implication of your article the skill set required to function as a journalist and editor in the publishing world falls far short of the necessary skills and abilities required to be successful as a CEO of any business in this economic climate let alone a start-up advertising agency such as Droga5.
As evidence I suggest a through assessment of Mr. Essex's lack of real revenue-based results during his tenure at the helm of Droga5. The agency under Mr. Essex seems to have only been able to acquire pro-bono work. The one minor paying account the agency claims was provided by a third party without Mr. Essex' involvement.
This poor performance would suggest a disconnect between his simplistic "...go out and sell some fucking ads" bluster and the complex skills actually required in the area of sales and marketing to achieve positive economic results in his new chosen profession.
beyond lacking the courage to attach a name to this attack, the writer of the above comment appears to have little respect for the craft of fact checking or proof reading. Give me a ring if you'd like a "through" assessment.
What is interesting about this article is that it seems to lend credibility to some of these glossy, luxury magazines that in a sense are helping to dilute the editorial integrity of this country and call into question the business model of this publication and others mentioned in the article; paid circulation.
This new generation of glossy magazines direct mail themselves to select "wealthy" households, deliver bulk stacks to mail rooms of condos and who knows where else... Is this really servicing the advertiser or the reader? Would they have readers if they didn’t show up uninvited in their mailbox?
I understand that the luxury market is seeing tremendous success, even through this current economic climate, but do these glossy magazines really have any purpose other than to showcase advertising?
What gives a magazine its identity is its reader. When you put the reader first, you are also serving the advertiser in the best way. Not the other way around.
And to Mr. Kong's preference of delivering only positive editorial, I will end with a quote from a great publisher of our time:
“What if you had a great story on your hands and you
knew that you had it right, but running that story might
get you sued, or it might cost you advertisers, or it might
lose you some friends…what do you do with that story?”
“You run that story. That’s the only way you’ll
ever have a great magazine.”
Editors selling ads? Not in my world, not any magazine worth picking up and reading. I am familiar with Hamptons and Gotham and Ocean Drive and all of the Modern Luxury editions. I've picked them up once and that was enough to know that they are not worth the paper they are printed on. I would be embarrassed to have them in my house or in my office. As for Mr. Essex, well, he sounds like a lost cause and a sad one. Believe it or not, people with money, people who can afford to buy many of the things that these luxury magazines advertise are too smart to ever see those advertisements. Good luck Mr. Essex, you are going to need it.