Keith J. Kelly
MEDIA INK
Time Inc. CEO Laura Lang has been on the job for three months now and it seems that one of her decisions — namely, who will run the editorial operations — will result in no major upheaval. Insiders say she is renewing the contract of John Huey.
Huey, editor-in-chief since 2005, was one of the troika said to be instrumental in ending the reign of Lang’s predecessor, Jack Griffin, last February after less than six months on the job.
Lang, who came from the digital agency Digitas with no background in journalism, has been taking things very slowly.
Jill Abramson glares as she runs the gauntlet of a newsroom protest that drew a crowd of staffers." title="FORCED MARCH: Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson glares as she runs the gauntlet of a newsroom protest that drew a crowd of staffers." width="300" height="300" src="/rw/nypost/2012/03/02/business/web_photos/02.1f032.mediaink1.c--300x300.jpg" />
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FORCED MARCH: Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson glares as she runs the gauntlet of a newsroom protest that drew a crowd of staffers.
Sources say that approach is keeping in line with Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes’ mandate, since the quick changes orchestrated by Griffin in his first 100 days rankled insiders and eventually led to the Griffin ouster after a clash of styles.
The original scenario would have been for Huey to gracefully exit sometime after the 2012 election, clearing the way for a Lang-appointed successor to take the reins and eventually put in a new stable of editors at Time and other top weeklies.
Now, with Huey staying on board, insiders think Lang is in no great hurry to make edit changes, since most of the editors running the big weekly magazines such as People, Time and Sports Illustrated, as well as bi-weekly Fortune and monthly Money, are all Huey appointees.
Neither Huey nor Lang would comment.
Whitney’s wake
Whitney Houston is no Elvis—but she’s close.
The black-and-white bootleg photo of a dead Elvis Presley lying in his coffin on the cover of the National Enquirer in 1977 led to its best-selling issue of all time — with 7.7 million copies sold at 39 cents each.
The Enquirer said a similar unauthorized photo of Houston in her coffin on the cover of last week’s issue had estimated sales of 770,000 — about one-tenth of the Elvis sales total.
But today’s copies are going for $3.79 — nearly 10 times the price in ’77 — so it is nearly a wash as far as net revenue goes.
American Media CEO David Pecker said the Whitney cover issue — which sparked outrage by some fans — was “the best-selling issue in the past 18 months.”
Pecker also said that the previous week covering Whitney’s death sold about 625,000.
In the second half of 2011, the Enquirer was selling 472,731 copies a week on newsstands, which was an 11.4 percent drop. Its circulation, including subscriptions, was 618,770 in the second half.
The company saw a 17 percent drop in cash flow in its third quarter. It closes its fiscal year on March 31 and needs all the help it can get to satisfy investors.
Occupy NYT
The top trio of editors at the New York Times, including Executive Editor Jill Abramson, released a very sympathetic letter to rank-and-file newsroom employees yesterday following a silent protest inside the paper’s offices by union members on Wednesday.
Members of the Newspaper Guild, the largest union at the Times, representing reporters and photographers and some business-side people, had staged a silent protest by lining the hallway outside the page one meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
A photo of the silent protest (above) was tweeted yesterday.
The protest was not directed at Abramson or Managing Editors Dean Baquet or John Geddes. The aim was for the editors to relay to Chairman Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr. the newsroom anger at the stalled contract talks.
The Newspaper Guild has been without a contract since March 31, 2011. The Guild said that in talks the company has been pushing to freeze pension benefits.
Apparently, what stoked the newsroom anger was a report on Footnoted.org that crunched the numbers in the Times’ recently-filed 10-K revealing that ousted former President and CEO Janet Robinson will get, in addition to her severance and pension, an added $4.5 million for a gig that requires her to do no more than 15 hours of consulting per month. If she puts in all 15 hours, it works out to $375,000 a month or $25,000 per hour.
But the consulting gig is only part of her farewell package, estimated to be more than $21 million.
Bill O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild, said the protest was organized by the newsroom, not the Guild.
The editors appear sympathetic.
“Yesterday’s gathering by the page one room shortly before the 4 p.m. meeting was another reminder of how deeply unsettling this time has been,” said a memo released by Abramson, Baquet and Geddes to staffers yesterday. “We understand those concerns.”
kkelly@nypost.com
Jill Abramson, Jill Abramson, Laura Lang, Keith J. KellyMEDIA INKTime Inc., Jack Griffin, Elvis Presley, Newspaper Guild, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes’
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