Newseater - Adult Edition

More on last week’s Forbes.com layoffs. Turns out the layoffs came as part of a move to merge the print on online staffs of the publication beginning January 2009. Per the memo that CEO Steve Forbes sent to staff:

Over the next few weeks, the sales and marketing groups of Forbes magazine and Forbes.com will be combined into three specific units under the Forbes Media umbrella…The leaders of the newly established groups will report to The Office of the Chairman, which will consist of Steve Forbes, Chairman and CEO of Forbes Media; Timothy Forbes, President and COO of Forbes Media; and Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO of Forbes.com.

WWD says that in total 43 people were laid off but they mostly came from the business side meaning that “the edit side is soon to follow.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Original post by Lux Alptraum

As we have said so (too) many times in the last few weeks, things in the media world are bad and look to be getting worse. Also, we really doubt anyone reading this blog needs us to tell you that. However! Does that mean things are “insanely” hopeless? Probably not. Are our jobs boards still posting numerous opportunities daily? In fact they are, which is why we continually encourage you to look at them (and, btw, if they weren’t in all likelihood you would also find us perched at a local bar). But also, when things are this bad isn’t it sort of a waste of everyone’s time to, say, complain about ways that might just help to make it a bit better and somewhat less scary (not to mention, diss functioning media companies).

Anyway! We thought we’d take this opportunity to tell you that we liked the mediabisto class we once took very much. And that when we took it we just so happened to be a person who wanted to work in the media but had “no contacts or connections.” But precisely! (Because people who want to work in the media but don’t yet rarely do.) Among other great and helpful things, this is how we met Rachel Sklar and a number of other people currently employed in our industry…all very good connections: media, emotional, and otherwise! Apparently Sklar concurs with us on this here and here! You know, all things considered not such a bad investment!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Original post by Lux Alptraum

On Big Money, Slate’s brilliantly timed financial site, Lesley M. M. Blume penned an article about Conde Nast’s strategy, or lack thereof, on the Internet. The company recently cut its CondeNet team and axed almost the entire staff of Portfolio.com, saying it was a magazine company first.

A Conde editor — speaking anonymously — believes maybe that’s, um, not the way to go.

“Any rational person would say that’s crazy. To say that we’re just a magazine company in this day and age is like saying that we’re a buggy company.”

From Blume’s reporting it sounds like being on the digital side at the company is horrible. Can you say second-class citizens?

In most cases, the company insists that new site technologies be developed by nail-bitingly slow internal IT teams rather than using high-quality, inexpensive technologies widely available on the market. It took one editor a whole year just to obtain a flash audio player.

Why won’t Conde invest in the Web? And how can we solve the online money problem? After the jump, we stumble around in the dark, searching for solutions…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Original post by Gram Ponante

Arianna Huffington apparently prefers men. That’s the conclusion anyway of a study done for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting by former HuffPoer Jessica Wakeman. Wakeman tracked the 13 featured blog posts on the homepage twice daily for for nine weeks and coded them by gender. Per the report: “During the study period (7/7/08 — 9/5/08), only 255 of 1,125 bylines — 23 percent — belonged to women.

The study found at least one female byline on the home page at all times. [However!] Of the 89 times bylines were checked during the study, not once did the number of women’s bylines equal those belonging to men. Only eight times did women account for more than a third of all bylines. And Arianna Huffington, appearing 57 times, accounted for more than a fifth of all women’s bylines; 45 of those occupied the most visible top post.

So, these numbers — Wakeman points out they fall “perfectly in line with elite print media’s abysmal gender numbers” — possibly do not reflect so well on a woman who professes to be an ardent supporter of “fearless” strong women. That said, does the study reflect HuffPo as a whole?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Original post by Lux Alptraum

Quadrangle Equity Investors, the media hedge fund of Quadrangle Group LLC, will close at the end of the year. The fund, which invests in media and communications stock, has lost more than 25 percent of its $500 million in assets.

While the parent company, founded by former The New York Times reporter Steven Rattner in 2000, boasted good returns, the hedge fund couldn’t keep pace in the tough environment.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Original post by pweasels