Looking for Someone to Blame for the Industry’s Implosion? Try Editors

What a genius. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I'll leave the cynicism to the mainstream blather brigade. Great stuff, Mark.

This has long needed to be said. We are struggling for our lives and the editorial group won't do anything differently or new without more staff - they don't want to understand they can't just do what they have always done. It isn't good enough any more. We need innovation, vision, people that are going to shake things up, that will step up and provide some leadership. To many don't have the basic skills to survive without a staff of people to actually do the work. Staffs most magazines simply can't afford anymore.

Not all chief editors are deadbeats, Mark. I think about my 60-hour average work week and my dedication to serve readers the best content no matter how long it takes to get it right. I know other editors with similar work ethics and quality expectations, too. But I've also worked with and for editorial "leaders" like the ones you criticize, those who have no clue what their readers need and want. In this economic climate, how do they keep their jobs?! That's the real question. The magazine industry can't afford to carry deadbeats. Media companies need to weed them out! Plenty of talented mid-level editors are ready and willing to step up--if magazine executives would just take the time to find that out.

>> Nobody is willing to take chances when they can continue to get their 3 percent annual raise, work 17 hours a week in the office, and not have to do any heavy lifting, mentally or physically. << What alternate reality are you living in? Three percent raises? 17-hour work weeks? Try frozen salaries, slashed benefits, ever rising healthcare contributions, doubling up on responsibilities, and 50-hour weeks, minimum. Maybe things are cushier at "lifestyle" magazines, but not out here in B2Bland.

What nonsense! While 20 years ago I knew more than my fair share of editors who phoned it in like this writer laments, but nobody recently. Who can possible run a publication from a La-Z-Boy chair in this hyper-competitive market, when we are all multi-tasking on multiple platforms and serving more as brand managers for multi-media properties than as print magazine editors??? If anything, editors have been the heroes of late, struggling to maintain the quality and editorial integrity of their publications in the face of massive layoffs, budgets cuts for art, freelancers and travel, and increasing pressure to cave in to advertiser demands the blur the line between sales and editorial. This piece comes across as just a bunch of blather to me! The dinosaurs in this business are long since extinct. It does no good to rant against the Dodo for refusing to fly--they don't exist anymore!!!

"... 3 percent annual raise, work 17 hours a week in the office, and not have to do any heavy lifting, mentally or physically." I've worked at B2Bs and many other types of publications, and I've never experienced what you're writing about. If your company has someone working 17 hours a week, they should be fired. That's a failure of management, not a cause for attacking editors as a group -- the vast majority of whom I know are doing more than one job, have reduced benefits, and get 3 percent raises only in the good times and take pay cuts during the bad. As far as openness to changes, in my experience, it's usually been the editorial staff that tries to make changes and try new things, but the business side that has a rigid sense of definition for what's doable and not doable for the magazine/brand. What B2B publisher-from-hell did you work for?

I have 20 years publishing/publications experience, mostly B2B, but never made it to EIC, not that I wanted to. I worked under one EIC like those you describe. This guy took a day off before his vacation, so he could "get ready" and another before he came back to the office "to recover," but in his reality those two days didn't count as vacation days taken. But the days when that behavior was acceptable are long, long gone. Now when costs must be cut those with the largest salary are most vulnerable. If those high-paid Chiefs aren't pulling their weight, they are making it that much easier for management to pull the trigger.

I agree with the point on the need for dynamic thinking and leadership by editors, And while the resistance (or inability) to change may be more widespread among editors than we'd like to admit, lack of work ethic and willingness to roll up sleeves to handle an ever-growing number of responsibilities is not. Yes, I'm sure the Manhattan media crowd has it's share of limousine leaders and Hamptons honchos, but the vast majority of editorial leaders I have known in my 23 years in the business have been among the hardest working and most forward-thinking ones in the enterprise – likely to be the ones routinely working 50-60 hr. weeks for that 3% (if they're lucky) annual increase. Lack of resources to institute needed change (and I don't necessarily mean staff) is more often the impediment these days than lack of willingness, effort or know-how.

Surely you have either been spending too much time on the set of "Ugly Betty" or "The Devil Wears Prada" or are stuck in the overpaid eighties. Yes, I admit we thought we had too much work to do back in the day despite four editors, a copyeditor, a photo editor, assistants and more, all for a ten times/year magazine. However, in the last decade, that work is regularly handled by two editors and maybe a freelance copyeditor and as many free interns as you can wrangle. I would have LOVED to innovate, even without additional staff, at the last couple of mags I've headed, but there was simply NO money even to pay a living wage to the few remaining freelance writers who could afford to stick around. If there are those freeloading divas still around, seems to me it's a management issue. Don't blame the rest of the hardworking editors that have to make gold out of straw daily.

It's 11 p.m. I started at 7:30 a.m. This is my so-called life. I'm an EIC. I'd like to comment further, but I'm beat. So, I will thank my fellow editors for defending the job -- or jobs as it turns out -- we do.

You're kidding, aren't you? I took over as E-i-C from a genuine deadbeat last year. My former position wasn't replaced but because I have marketing experience my current job was expanded. As well as running the thing, reporting to an increasingly angry and scared management, devising marketing plans, schmoozing with current and potential advertisers while somehow trying desperately to keep the wall up between editorial and advertising, I also have to write news and do some reporting as well, now that the freelance budget has been slashed. And all the time I can hear the recession breathing down my neck, knowing that if I lose my job I won't find another one, and our demise would cause significant hardship for our excellent writers. We've really come to a low point when journalists/editors begin turning on one another.

I'd love to see the sales staff "do more with less." Let them get the ax when they don't sell. With the push for fresh online content while keeping a B-2-B print going, everyone in the EIC job is working 10 hours or more a day. And, most of us are working smarter. We all know of a dope who kept getting promoted for one reason or another. That is not the norm. Writers are creative people and should be encouraged to do so. But, we shouldn't be wasting time preparing content for delivery systems that simply are going to go away in a few years and really can't be sold because the sales monkeys don't understand them.

Read the fine print, folks. Newman isn't going off an all EICs (and other editors), just the lazy ones. This is simply another example of the Peter Principle at work in the magazine business. In my experience with a handful of publications (consumer mags, not B2B), the EICs and other editors have been a mixed bad, but as the years went on, EICs go from being innovative and wanting to break new ground to not wanting to rock the boat and then they start mailing it in. And it is obvious to everyone in the newsrooms except the butt-kissing sycophants dying to get in his good graces. I am not saying these people are incompetent (editors who can't edit notwithstanding), just immobilized by fear of changing course and losing such a sweet gig.

I'm an EIC for a large circulation NYC-based magazine, which has been very successful by all standards. I've had my salary frozen, my overall compensation lowered, and my staff cut nearly in half. We all work from 8AM to 7PM every day (much to our dismay of our spouses and children). Despite the cuts, our work load has doubled, maybe tripled, now that also publish a website, host events, run "marketing programs," and appear on television. We've managed to innovate some, but it's hard to make much progress when most of your time and effort is spent keeping your head above water. And every EIC I know is in the same boat. Things haven't been the way you described them in a long, long time.

Seriously Mark, I know where you're coming from. It's difficult for an EIC who's been sitting in that chair for years to see past his own ego and the tip of his own nose. And the minute someone comes up with something innovative, it's met with negativity and an attempt to get that person fired. Personally, though, I do not know of any EIC's who work 17 hour weeks and come and go as they please.

Oh, Mark...Did you dust off a piece of copy you wrote some 15 years ago at the start of your career, and try to pass it off to colleagues and peers as...new? It's likely that the only ocean sounds heard during an editor's phone call is throughout one of yours with Inez and other friends from your office down there in Gulf Shores (a beautiful region of the country, indeed, and a lovely place to work). Editorial staffs have been pared past the fat, past the muscle and into the bone. Our mantra from top, top management has for years been: "evolve or perish." At least that is what I told the staffs of magazines under my oversight during my meteoric rise from obit writer to editorial director over the course of nearly 40 years in the game, the majority of which was spent in the B2B arena. Take the Web, for example. Personally, I fell in love with technology from the get-go, and had been integrating 'e' into any brand under my umbrella since the early '90s. That is, until I threw up my hands last summer and finally cried "uncle." The reason? A revolving door of short-sighted veeps and publishers who could not break out of the print mold; who could not 'sell' the creative 'e' ideas put forth again and again from the edit side. One of them actually had the genius to force a new print product on us just three years ago. A real rocket scientist, that one, mandating a new print product while top management was mandating a substantial increase in Web revenue as a percentage of all revenue generated. What was he thinking?! Lucky for us, he thought out loud: "I'm a print man. In the end, the company won't care where the money comes from." Instead of blaming editorial curmudgeons, Mark, (Hey, even Andy Rooney is online!) perhaps some of the blame rests with a complacent middle management unable or unwilling to sell in a new way; in a new style. A group that is failing to excite with vision and ideas, the new generation of marketing and advertising decision makers the publishing industry depends on to survive. Ya think?

As a former EIC for two national publications, it pains me to see my colleagues circling the wagons so quickly when the creativity of do-nothing editors is questioned. How do they know that "we all work from 8 am to 7 pm every day"? How could a trained journalist even make such unsupportable statements as, "The dinosaurs in this business are long since extinct"? The real point, however, is that it's not the editors' fault. If they are allowed to "phone it in," to ignore changing audience needs and market demands, it's their publisher's fault. Where is the management vision, the motivational skill to demand more and get it, or the guts to fire and then find and promote new talent? As they say, the fish rots from the head.

There are great EICs and deadbeat EICs and this story perfectly describes the deadbeat EIC. Even as an ad sales guy, at my last job, I worked with a deadbeat EIC who thinks magazine publishing is the same today as it was 20 years ago. I'm still amazed that he still has the EIC job when cuts were made last year to the editorial department. The EIC should have been the first one to get the boot. Talk about hiding behind a title...

I am a magazine art director now on my sixth layoff---wish someone had said this 10 years ago.....(I know I have)

Mark, As I read your post and the comments that followed. I was shaking my head wondering why everyone was taking shots - some cheap, some not - at the "community" of content leaders...until I got to "Blame it Forward" (Wordsmith) who hit the nail on the head!! The problem in my estimation has little to do with content or its digital evolution. It has to do with the sales engines of many traditional publishing organizations. I met with a very senior member of a major publisher just after Forbes announced they were bringing together their print and digital operations. As a long-time advocate and champion of integrating operations (one brand,one team), I mentioned to this senior executive that I thought Forbes did the long overdue, smart thing. The executive in question resisted the wisdom of the Forbes move and said his organization would probably never move in that direction. Surprise surprise, just a couple of weeks back the organization in question moved in Forbes-like fashion going so far as to now call their publishers chief brand officers. My point is not meant to criticize the individual with whom I met. In fact, this person is extremely bright and exceedingly talented. My point is to draw attention to the fiefdoms and silos that are institutionally embedded in most traditional media organizations. Impending disaster is usually the best change-manager. This is particularly prevalent on the sales side. Having worked with a number of "interactive" sellers, I'm comfortable stating that most are okay, not great. Proficient at filling out RFPs and playing the interactive agency game, many initially lack the client penetration and consultative, strategic selling skills needed in today's environment. The print sellers don't get the highest marks either but for the most part have been siloed by their digital brethren. The print seller AND the digital seller are not to blame. Management is to blame. Think about it. Are your organization's sellers the best of the best? Would they stand out in other industries such as IT, consulting or BPO? Is your organization paying enought to get the best quality sellers or is there a general belief at the top that anyone can sell - or not sell as the case may be - your products. Are your sellers getting the proper training? Has executive management aligned and incentivized content, distribution, marketing and sales in a manner that truly rewards cross-platform sales? Have your organizations embraced the ABC and BPA One-Brand metric initiatives by aligning rate structures accordingly? Do members of your organization still play the political game in the midst of this crisis? You know the answers to these questions and the fault lies with leaders at the most senior level! So content "community" stop beating each other up! If you've got lazy co-workers get rid of them or expose them but do your "community" a favor. Demand that your executive management improve the quality of your sellers and their immediate management by replacing them or in lieu of that demand that they receive the proper consultative, cross-channel sales training. Anything less and you have zero chance of survival. JG

Please allow me to edit Mark's story to clarify his position: Looking for Someone to Blame for the Industry’s Implosion? Try editors for not re-focusing editorial (and thus increasing ad revenue). Cut to the chase Mark. If your going shill for the publishers, at least learn to do it quickly!

If you wish to blame for a lack of innovation and creativity, in my view you can blame bad management for failing to set performance goals for the editors they hire — and for not asking the writers who work with them for their input prior to conducting annual performance reviews. I worked at a community paper in the 1990s during which time the editor over me left for greener pastures shortly after I was hired. I worked without an editor for three months, entirely to compliments for my work, when an editor with dubious qualifications was brought on board to fill the vacancy. My first impression of this gal was quite positive, but I came to suspect she faked her resume to get the job. We had a antiquated computer system that required a slug line. She turns to me and asks, "What is a slug?" This from a woman who allegedly worked in print journalism for nearly 20 years! This woman was hired from out of state and could have easily clipped a reporter's articles from any paper in the US and claimed them as her own. She had one of those common last names that would make this scam easy to pull off. The very first week on the job she missed a deadline set at our weekly budget meeting (assigned by our boss). The next week, she asks: "What are your aspirations?" Now keep in mind this was coming from someone old enough to be a sibling, not exactly a matronly figure. Upon hearing that I wished to become a columnist, she said "I don't think anyone should write a column until they have some life experience behind them." She then goes on to say that at minimum I ought to have kids first, and this to someone who was single at the time! She didn't know anything whatsoever about my life experience — whether I did or did not have children, for that matter — yet she had the nerve to go on the offensive the second week on the job! Now originally the training editor was supposed to be on site one week to bring her up to speed. Somehow, this veteran reporter got our bureau boss to keep the training editor on roughly three weeks because she was having difficulty using the computers. The day she got the place all to herself without the training editor looking over her shoulder, she began handing her share of the workload over to me (at this paper, editors were also supposed to serve as contributing writers). Eventually, she had me out at 7 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m. within a 12-24 hour period — and this at a newspaper that would later be sued for failing to honor comp time or overtime! Worse yet, her edits were so bad that she inserted typos where none existed before. On publication day I would find my articles ruined by very obvious mistakes, which I repeatedly confirmed were not present in any of my drafts. Does this sound like 20 years of experience to you? Me neither. In a fruitless attempt to keep things professional, I kept my mouth shut and refrained from critical and catty behavior. She, however, made an end-run around me by going to our boss and making up all-out lies. It worked. Within a month's time she had taken all focus off her own performance and placed it on me. In fact, she changed the entire dynamic of the bureau for the worse. Exhausted and fed up, I submitted my resignation and left. Some 10 years later she's still working, having produced, to my knowledge, nothing new or innovative on behalf of her employer since. Her so-called columns have all the substance of a petty high schooler: The last one I read on the Internet spoke about fears of gaining weight while on a cruise, which led to a tangent about how horrible overweight people look. This is the talent this paper retained! Ironically, this same paper is losing circulation, laying off staff and consolidating sections. As an editor, however, it would appear her job is as safe as an ineffectual tenured teacher. Although my story speaks of frustration toward an unprofessional and under-qualified editor, I reserve the greatest criticism for management. This editor sat less than 10 feet away from the head of the news bureau and not one of her missteps was noted. Once an editor is hired, it would appear publishers rarely look back — and that says more about wrongheaded management than uncreative or incompetent editors.

Blame ultimately rests at the top, sorry. The magazine industry in general is probably dead weight in the magazine industry's future.

I'm with Khali Henderson. I've just pulled three weeks of 17 hour days to keep my 100-page monthly magazine on schedule with a staff of four. Innovate? How about retaliate? Publishers and advertisers lay unreasonable demands at the doorstep of editors expecting us to create perfect 'products' with limited resources and overwhelmed teams, but of course bitching about advertisers would probably be a little to courageous on your part, Mark. How about a reality check. The business model is broken, the print production process is showing us its age and the economy is in the can. All of those factors contribute to a near impossible set of challenges for any editor--good or bad--to handle. Refocusing content is the "dummy's guide to keeping your job for another week," solution. How about refocusing the industry. Our problems won't be solved by any one entity, but by all of us. A good, circumspect editor would know that, Mark. So I guess you can rule yourself out of that clique.

A good editor lives the job and loves the book. Seven days a week is the norm, whether at home or in the office. Surprised you've forgotten that. Our motto is to treat each issue like it's the last one you'll ever put out---make it your best. And we do. That, I believe, is the norm, not the editor sitting by the shore slurping margaritas and phoning it in.