Put out to pasture
Editor axed as Modern Farmer embraces digital
SARAH Gray Miller is out as the editor of the trendy food and culture title Modern Farmer, which won two National Magazine Awards in its short five-year history and is dropping its print edition.
“Modern Farmer Media has decided to move from a quarterly print operation, to a 24/7 digital magazine,” said a spokeswoman. “We will continue to invest in the brand, and our writers. We will be enhancing our digital platform in the months and years ahead.
While the magazine has gained acclaim for its cheeky headlines and tapping into the burgeoning urban-to-farm movement from its offices in the Hudson Valley, it has also been wracked by turmoil as it struggled to thrive. Ann Marie Gardner, the founding editor, launched the title in 2013 and won the first National Magazine Award in 2014, after it had published only three issues.
But despite earning great publicity for the fledgling title — she was once fea- tured in Harper’s Bazaar milking a cow and wearing designer clothing — she had feuded with her backer, Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining mogul, former chairman of Lionsgate Entertainment and founder of the investment firm Fiore Group. By the end of 2014, she was out and Fiore became the 100 percent owner.
Gray Miller was hired in February 2015 and for a while things were looking up again. Gray Miller had a track record of her own as a past editor of Country Living and the founding editor of Budget Living, which also landed a National Magazine Award.
She declined to comment on her departure from Modern Farmer this week. A spokeswoman confirmed that Gray Miller was one of three editorial people to exit this week. No new top editor has yet been named.
Go West
Norman Pearlstine, a former executive at Time, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal who on Monday was tapped as the new editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times, dismissed talk that he’s a carpetbagger heading West for the first time.
“I’ve had two stints in my past where I reported from Los Angeles,” he said. “I don’t feel it’s alien to me. When I was running editorial at Time Inc. (where he was editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2005 and returned as chief content officer from 2013 to 2017), I was supervising Time and People and Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated. There were times when I’d spend a quarter of the year in Los Angeles.”
One former top editor at Time said of Pearlstine: “His news judgment is impeccable. He’s calm in the storm — he’s like a sea captain. And he understands the concentric circles of power in Los Angeles.”
He may need all those skills to calm the editorial waters, which have been upset by editorial turmoil and cutbacks by past owner Tronc and which saw the remaining 400 editorial employees unionize for the first time in the paper’s nearly 130 year history.
Regarding the new owner: “What Patrick
Soon-Shiong came to understand is that it needed a change in direction from one of cost cutting to one that is going to be investing,” said Pearlstine.
New chief
Greg Osberg, who was president of Newsweek and also ran the Philadelphia Inquirer for two years, has been tapped to be the new CEO of F+W Media.
For the past six months, he had been interim CEO following the January ouster of Tom Beusse, COO Joe Siebert and CTO Joe Romello by the controlling venture fund.
The company publishes everything from craft titles such as Quilting Arts to outdoor titles including Deer & Deer Hunting as well as Old Cars Price Guide, Military Vehicles and Writer’s Digest.
Osberg said he recently tapped Ken Kharbanda to be the CFO, keeping tabs on the company for venture backers that include Fortress, Apollo Global Management and Fremont Macanta.