Pale in comparison?
Meredith staffers call out lack of diversity
By KEITH J. KELLY
MEREDITH
Corp. held a series of town hall meetings in New York and DesMoines— and in at least one of them, staffers pressed Chief Executive Tom Harty about the company’s apparent lack of diversity in its upper ranks.
“They’re basically all middle-aged white males from the Midwest,” grumbled one former Time Inc. staffer.
Time Inc. also wrestled with some of the same issues. It did count Jen
Wong, its former chief operating officer and president of digital, in its upper echelon — but she is among the executives exiting post-merger with a seven-figure golden parachute. There is only one woman among the top seven executives at Meredith — Dina
Nathanson, the Senior VPof HR. “In a room where many of the people in attendance had been told they’d be out of a job, Meredith was talking about merit increases, how they are‘ in it to winit’ — as if Time employees did nothing their whole career and how diverse Meredith was,” said one insider.
“Their leadership was asked, ‘If you are so diverse, why are there no women in executive positions,’ and if they realized that diversity goes beyond gender?” said the insider.
“We spoke to approximately 2,400 employees over four meetings,” said a Meredith spokesman who added that the meetings had a “really great vibe.”
“At one meeting and one meeting only, we had two follow-up questions [about diversity efforts],” he said.
He said at legacy Meredith National Media Group, “over 50 percent of those with VP titles or above are female. At legacy Time, it was 55 percent. Sovery similar.”
Gotham folds
Seventeen-year-old Gotham magazine is going to fold and become a section inside Manhattan magazine at Modern Luxury,
The move surprised many observers as Gotham was believed to be the more profitable of the two — and with a higher profile in the media world than 10-year-old Manhattan. Staffers were told Wednesday. “In terms of total dollars, I think Manhattan did a better job with national ads and Gotham did a better job locally,” CEO Michael Dickey told Media Ink.
The Dickey family’s Modern Luxury inherited Gotham and Hamptons Magazine when it purchased GreenGale Publishing a year ago at a fire sale price believed to be under $15 million. As a result of the move,
Sarah Bray, who was running Gotham and Beach, will now be the editor-in-chief only of Beach while continuing to edit a Gotham section in Manhattan.
The company said the former Town & Country staffer will also be the interiors editor for the whole chain.
Phebe Wahl stays as editor of Manhattan.
Dickey insisted no other consolidation plans are afoot.
Unite The Onion
Writers at The Onion, in what we assume is a real story, have voted to unionize with the Writers Guild of America East.
Also joining in the “yea” vote are sister publications A.V. Club and ClickHole.
“It’s real news, I guarantee you,” said a spokesman for the Writers Guild of America East. The Onion is an online humor publication whose satirical news stories frequently get rebroadcast in China as fact.
Univision’s Fusion Media Group controls The Onion through its 40 percent stake in the company.
Both Univision and Fusion have been plunged into turmoil as they struggle to pay off a mountain of debt that fueled TV expansion in the years before the Great Recession.
Univision’s IPO, pending since 2015, was withdrawn earlier this month, and CEO Randy Falco announced he was retiring at year end.
A year ago, its Fusion subsidiary said it was searching for up to a $200m million investment to fuel expansion. But the new money was never secured. Recently, the parent company retained the Boston Consulting Group, which recommended that Fusion’s budget be cut by a third, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Fusion CEO Felipe Holguin and Chief Content Officer Daniel Eilemberg left the company earlier this month.