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.

First they get a You Tube account. Now the New Yorker is throwing hip-hop dance parties at Hiro and hosting discussions with the writing team behind Knocked Up and Superbad. Such was the scene at the fifth annual New Yorker Festival, bidding to become the most eclectic literary festival anywhere, over the weekend. For starters, a report
from the Sasha Frere-Jones-hosted dance party Saturday:

It's really unlikely that Sas More...

When the news broke late last week that Cygnus Business Media had announced to employees through an internal memo that their salaries will be cut by 7.5 percent, and that hourly workers will be put on a 37-hour workweek at least through the end of the year, one of our first thoughts was what the early- to mid-career staffers there would do: Grin and bear it, or quit?

It remains to be seen how things at Cygnus will shake out. In the meantime, we informally polled a small handful of assistant/associate-level magazine types throughout the industry to see how they'd react i More...

From the often over-looked direct marketing list-spam news:

Direct Media is pleased to announce that they have been awarded management of the 159,000 name Condé Nast Portfolio subscriber file.

Published monthly, Condé Nast Portfolio offers readers a business angle in every story, from politics to art, technology to entertainment and seeks nothing less than to shape the conversation in business. Since its highly anticipated launch in May, Portfolio has offered a unique blend of business news, trends, and the upscale lifestyle, which is sharply intelligent, and visually compelling.

The Condé Nast Portfolio subscribers are affluent, influential executives who are passionate about business and life. They are intellect More...

Maybe those seemingly incessant anniversary issues aren't such a bad idea after all. The Atlantic Monthly says its 150th anniversary November issue contains more than 80 pages of adverting-or roughly 20 more ad pages than it normally carries-and a custom gatefold cover "requested specifically by an advertiser." And in a fit of Web 2.0-dom, the magazine is also inviting readers to contribute 200-word essays online for inclusion in a future Atlantic issue. The self-gloating editor's
note, however, is tough to take:

"Unlike other publications, The Atlantic wasn't created to track a particular identity found on a map-Hollywood's glamour, New York's More...

Hearst, continuing to execute its aggressive digital strategy, has officially launched its Cosmopolitan mobile site-as Folio: reported back in August-with all the expected bells and whistles, including something called a Dude Decoder, the "ultimate body language guide to find out what he's really thinking," as well as a fake calls service that "calls your cell phone and provides you with excuses to get out of a bad date."

Goofy, "men suck" gimmicks aside, mobile executives at major magazine companies like Hearst-and minor ones, too-say mobile sites like Cosmo's are a "real business."

Here's a quote from Olivier Gri More...

Fresh off its partnership with Nintendo to revive the 19-year-old Nintendo Power, Future US, niche publisher of music and gaming magazines, has announced it is reviving-or "exhuming," as pseudo-rival Game Pro called it-Playstation magazine.

The move comes a year after Ziff Davis ceased production on the custom magazine. The new official Playstation will be published 13 times per year.

With Playstation, Future US now publishes all official of the official video game console magazines in America: Official Xbox Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine and Nintendo Power.

Here's a magazine event that is scandal-proof and UAB-free: the Australian version of Cosmopolitan attempted to set a Guiness World Record last week by gathering
over 1,000 bikini-clad babes-1,010 to be exact-on Australia's Bondi Beach.
The magazine advertisements recruited the beauties in Cosmopolitan print
advertisements and a micro-site, 30 Days of Fashion and Beauty.

The girls, of course, spelled out "C-O-S-M-O."

As Folio: previously reported, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post launched the latest glossy iteration of Page Six late last month as a Sunday insertion with guns aimed at the hated Gray Lady's New York Times Magazine. What we didn't report: the tabloid's marketing push. The Post has thoroughly (if annoyingly) blanketed subway cars and Metro North trains with display advertising, like the placard above, playing the obvious alliterative "sex" theme. They're even running an ad on local New Yo More...

I took the headline above directly from Paul Conley's September 30 blog entry about the severe cost-cutting measures undertaken late last week by Cygnus Business Media.

Those cuts -- made in response to projected revenue shortfalls -- included salary cuts through the end of the year for all employees, plus a reduced workweek for hourly employees, and, according to a couple of e-mails I got over the weekend, some unsubstantiated and probably exaggerated additional steps. In his post, Paul outlined all the details, and pointed out how unfair it is to enforce a pay cut on em More...

From the Folio: Show, Day Three: In a well-attended (20 or so people) and excellent presentation on the structure of building an M&A transaction, the conversation turned to "add-backs," the kinds of items a seller will tell the prospective buyer that he can discount on the expense side because they won't be there after the sale. It's often things like club memberships, cars, or if the owner is paying himself an unusually high salary, some portion of that. Naturally, the seller wants to throw in as many add-backs as possible, because taking out costs means profits are higher, and higher profits (or EBITDA) means a high More...