Time owner slams Facebook as ‘bad for you’
SALESFORCE CEO Marc Benioff, who one year ago bought Time magazine for $150 million, blasted Facebook this week, calling it “the new cigarette” that should be regulated and forced to break up.
“Facebook is a publisher,” he tweeted. “They need to be held accountable for propaganda on their platform. We must have standards & practices decided by law. FB is the new cigarette — it’s addictive, bad for us, & our kids are being drawn in.”
In an interview with CNN, Benioff went further, calling for the bust-up of the social media colossus.
“They probably should be broken up because they’re having an undue influence as the largest social media platform on the planet,” said the head of Salesforce, a software company.
The comments come as Benioff and his wife, Lynne, hinted in an open letter Thursday that they could be taking on more social causes.
“More than ever, the truth matters. Facts matter. Values matter,” said the letter, published in Time to mark the one-year anniversary of the Benioff’s purchase of the magazine and Web site. “Whatever organization, business or institution that we’re a part of, we need to realize that weare not separate from the larger social issues that surround us. We have a responsibility not simply to make a profit, but to make the world a better place.”
Ready to launch
Billionaire real estate mogul Charles Cohen, who bought Avenue magazine from Richard Burns’ Manhattan Media in December, said the relaunch has been pushed back from its original September plan until early 2020.
“I always take a lot of time to do things. If we rushed to do it, it wouldn’t be right,” said Cohen over lunch at media hot spot Michael’s Restaurant on Wednesday. “If the first issue is late, it’s better than the second issue being late. I want to hit the ground running — and keep on running.”
The plan now calls for a sweeping redesigned issue to hit in the second week of January and to publish six issues a year in 2020.
Avenue Editor-in-Chief (and bestselling author) Michael Gross was let go along with the rest of the staff and contributors as part of the acquisition in late 2018.
Cohen has since hired Kristina Stewart Ward— a former executive editor at Harper’s Bazaar and entertainment editor at Vanity Fair and former editor at rival Quest — as editorin-chief. He’s also commissioned design firm Pentagram to overhaul the magazine and Website.
Cohen was ranked number 239 on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, with a net worth of $3.4 billion. Over the past two years, the 68-yearold mogul has been on a buying spree, expanding well beyond the high-end commercial real estate business founded by his father and uncle in the 1950s.
He bought a majority interest in the Savile Row menswear fashion house Richard James, which opened its first American branch on Park Avenue last year. In late 2017, he bought the luxury footwear firm Harry’s of London, and shortly thereafter bounced its CEO. He also bought T. Anthony, a luxury leather goods and luggage company that kept its CEO after the deal.
In 2018, he also bought the Landmark Theaters from Mark Cuban, which gave him 252 screens in 28 theaters across 18 cities.
And his artsy movie house Charles Cohen Media has made a habit of getting nominated for Oscars in the foreign film category. Last year, its film “The Salesman” snagged an Oscar for best foreign film.
“They’re all part of the Curated Lifestyle Group, which now includes Avenue,” he said of his recent acquisitions.
The new version of the magazine and Web site will eschew politics, scandal, ambulance chasing and socialites.
“It will be design, great restaurants, neighborhoods,” he said, “something that celebrates what’s great about the city.”
Musical chairs
An upheaval at Meredith earlier in the week, which resulted in 70 lost jobs, shuffled the upper editor ranks at Real Simple and Parents.
Liz Vaccariello, who had been VP/ editor-in-chief of Parents magazine, will be the new VP/editor-in-chief of Real Simple. Her former No. 2 at Parents, Julia Edelstein, gets promoted to the EIC job. Vaccariello replaces Leslie Yazel, who had been appointed to the job in 2016 whenthe monthly was still overseen by Time Inc. Yazel could not be reached but appears to be part of the 70-person head count reduction that the company announced Wednesday when it also disclosed that it was shutting down 87-year-old Family Circle after the December issue. Someof the top people at FC have landed safely, however, including Editor-in-Chief Cheryl Brown, who will become executive editor of Health, while her No. 2, Executive Editor Rory Evans, moves over to Real Simple with the same title. Brendan Smyth, who was publisher of Family Circle, will now return to Health as publisher, while Maria Jakubek, who had that job, moves to People. Martha Stewart Living publisher Christine Guilfoyle is also out as her job gets absorbed by Daren Mazzurcca, who will becomes a group publisher in charge of MSL as well as her current gig at Real Simple.