FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

Spend last week wondering how Entertainment Weekly would treat the Writer's Guild strike? Neither did I. But it appears by putting the strike on the cover [above], the magazine took a bit of a gamble. The strike could've been over by the time the magazine hit newsstands (this morning), and could still be resolved before the next issue wraps, however unlikely. (This is the one time EW has to think like its Time Inc. brother Time.)

As the strike moves into its second week, though, the EW cover looks better and better.

When he took over as MPA chairman in 2005, Hachette Filipacchi CEO Jack Kliger's first movewas to call for the magazine industry and its advertisers to pursue a new way of measuring and evaluating magazines. "Circulation-based metrics are irrelevant to proving advertising effectiveness," Kliger said at the time. "There is too much focus on ratebase rather than distribution. Every other medium deals with audience, we deal with circulation. Why should a magazine advertiser care if a magazine is paid or non-paid?"

This week, at t More...

While Dan Rather didn't address his $70 million lawsuit against CBS while moderating a discussion at the 2007 American Magazine Conference, the former newsman didn't disappoint those who wanted to hear his so-called Ratherisms (if anyone is truly a brand at AMC, it would be Rather) live and in-person. Some of his best:

"If you had to bet your trailer money, who wins the nominations?"
"I'd bet the ranch on the New Yorkers."
"Not a single vote has been cast anywhere-right now it is guesswork."
"If I was te-totally me-morally forced to choose ..."
"[M More...

Brian Farnham, speaking at the American Magazine Conference Monday, said he had one goal in mind when putting together the 2007 sex issue, his second as editor: Cancelled subscriptions.

"If you do a sex issue and no one cancels, you're probably not doing your job," Farnham said.

Farnham said after no one cancelled their subscriptions after publishing the first sex issue of 18-month tenure at TONY, he wanted five this time around.

"I'm happy to report we vastly exceeded my goal."

When Pilar Guzman, editor of year-old Cookie, first tested the magazine's cover prototypes-high-end photo shoots with model moms and model kids in model situations-she realized the magazine had "totally underestimated the reader."

"The focus groups could tell who the fake-y models and kids," Guzman says. "A mom knows, a mom knows that moment-a 22-year-old model who doesn't have a kid doesn't really know how to hold a child."

Despite burning a bridge with the shoot's equally high-end photographer (Guzman never used the cover) Guzman says the test forever changed the ma More...

Best line from day one of the 2007 American Magazine Conference, taking place at the ridiculously posh Boca Raton Resort & Club, courtesy of Adverting Age editor Jonah Bloom:

"For the journalists in us, we like when you pick a place to moor our yachts ... I have the slip next to Keith Kelly this year."

The big question for the 500 or so magazine executives gathering at Boca Raton's cavernously posh resort and club this week for the 2007 America More...

As I have been known to criticize magazine publishers who do little more than lip service to being "green" (see: ‘Green' Issues Fail to Convert Magazines to Recycled Paper) it's nice to see a major magazine going beyond the "green issue" rhetoric and actually committing to something that will have an immediate impact. Starting next month, Everyday with Rachael Ray, whose ad revenue skyrocketed some 500 percent this year, will print its issues on 85 percent recycled paper. Additionally, the Reader's Digest-owned magazine i More...

High-profile editors are spouting off about the glossy relevancy of print, and that can mean only one thing: the American Magazine Conference is almost here. Like most magazine discussions these days, digital and its threat to print will undoubtedly be a major theme at next week's pow-wow of consumer magazine editors and publishers in Boca Raton (the conference has been given the unfortunate "Mag-a-brand' tagline) and, like politicians before a convention, editors seem to be sharpening their stump speeches.

Yesterday, three surfaced. More...

Six months after Time executed a historic redesign-and seemingly told anyone (read: Charlie Rose) who would listen-Newsweek has unveiled a redesign of its own, albeit ushered in with considerably less fanfare. Here's editor Jon Meacham's note:

We have two pieces of news close to home: a redesign of the magazine and of Newsweek.com. Our renovations come at an interesting time for journalism. As the number of news outlets expands, it is said, attention More...

Slate magazine columnist Ron Rosenbaum recently ripped into an Esquire cover profile of Angelina Jolie, calling it the "worst celebrity profile ever written." Rosenbaum devoted 2,300-words to thrashing its author, Tom Junod, without actually naming him, it should be noted, directly. ("Sure, it uses the death of thousands on 9/11 as a rationale for running a picture of a half-naked Angelina Jolie. But look, if we can't exploit 9/11 when we need to add a little gravitas to that silver sheet between Angelina's thighs, the terrorists win, right More...

Magazine mergers and acquisitions may be slowing down, but not for Andy Goodenough. The newly-installed president of Summit Business Media, told us recently that he has at least three deals in the works and expects to complete at least one by the end of the year.

NOTE: Look for our exclusive video interview with Goodenough in November.