Women say ex-Playboy editor assaulted them
A senior entertainment editor at Playboy.com is apparently out of a job — but the company said it only learned he was facing serious claims of rape and sexual assault after he was out the door.
Michael Hafford, who had been posting regularly on the magazine’s Web site up until Sept. 25, has been accused by at least four women of sexual assault.
In 2015, Hafford penned the “male feminist” column for the Broadly site at Vice Media.
“We are horrified by the allegations against Michael Hafford,” Ciel
Hunter, global head of content for Vice, told Media Ink. “Broadly does not tolerate violence against women of any kind, and we’ve worked hard to report on injustices against women and marginalized communities.”
The Broadly column ended in December 2015 after Vice received complaints about Hafford — although the complaints were more about rude office behavior, not sexual assaults.
The assault allegations surfaced on Oct. 6, when Helen Donahue, a former social media editor at Vice, posted a series of pictures of herself on Twitter. The photos showed bruises on her face and upper torso.
“sux men in media hate women yet write abt feminism n masquerade as allies but its sadder this happens,” she tweeted. “2015 i screamed @ my own reflection.”
Donahue did not identify her alleged accuser by name.
On the same day, a second alleged assault victim, Deirdre Coyle, after reaching out to Donahue to ask about the identity of Donahue’s attacker, then posted on Twitter: “these bruises came from the same guy who physically forced me to do cocaine during sex.”
A third alleged assault victim, identified on Twitter only as Dilara, also reached out to Donahue about the initial tweet and confirmed that she, too, had been victimized by Hafford. “This is the same guy who choked me at the foot of his stairs until I passed out and then repeatedly punched me in the face,” Dilara tweeted.
The tweets were soon picked up by BuzzFeed and Jezebel. Weeks later, a fourth woman told Jezebel she had been raped by Hafford.
Playboy put some distance between them and the accused. “Mr. Hafford worked for Playboy.com on a freelance basis for a few months this summer...he is no longer freelancing for the company. We were unaware of any allegations made against this individual during the brief time he worked with us.”
Vice said, “We continue to review the matter.”
Media Ink attempted to reach Hafford via e-mail and LinkedIn. He has apparently deleted his Twitter account and converted his Facebook and Instagram accounts to private.
Brill’s team
Veteran media entrepreneur Steve Brill is once again teaming up with former Wall Street Journal Publisher L. Gordon Crovitz — this time on a new online venture to detect fake news.
They last teamed up in a venture called Journalism Online and Press Plus, which they sold to R.R. Donnelly. It was ultimately resold to Piano media in 2014.
This time, Brill said, he and Crovitz are looking to raise about $6 million for the venture, dubbed News Guard. Brill will be the editor-in-chief. It has a tentative launch date of mid-2018.
Brill plans to hire 40 to 60 journalists who will be housed on a floor that he has continued to rent in the Paley Center for Media, next door to the 21 Club.
Brill was the founder of American Lawyer and Court TV, which were sold for big profits while his media watchdog magazine, , Brill’s Content, was forced to fold in 2001 after a falling-out with then-partner Primedia.
Time works
Time Inc. is trying to make more noise about its efforts in the digital sphere — even as Wall Street remains skeptical of any quick returns ahead of its quarterly results on Nov. 9.
On Tuesday, the company boosted Chris Hercik, SVP of cre- ative + content, to the new role of chief creative officer at The Foundry, its Brooklyn-based operation that has designed print and video ads for more than 500 advertisers.
And the company said it is also expanding live content ad distribution via People TV, its OTT ad-supported network, by live-streaming a handful of real-time programs via Twitter starting Nov. 20.
But it seems to be making no impression on the stock. Wall Street appears to be anticipating another tough quarter for its print magazines — including Time, People and InStyle, which still generate the greatest portion of profits. A Zacks Equity Research poll of analysts revealed they “expect revenues of $700 million, down 6.7 percent from the prioryear quarter.” Zacks did say that the company’s transformation efforts are “encouraging.” That should be good news to SVP Jaison Blair, who is going to be putting more effort into that front after relinquishing investor relations.
On Tuesday, Time shares closed at $10.65, down 10 cents.