Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Time to Praise -- or not -- Certain Magazine Editors

A couple of news bites regarding editors in action caught my attention.

First, there was a big round of promotions for leaders at Rodale, with many new positions, titles, and responsibilities handed out to deserving (we'll assume) employees. But, Jeff Bercovici reports, Men's Health editor David Zinczenko did not get promoted, and he's apparently not Mr. Popular at the office. Writes Bercovici: "No fresh plums were bestowed upon Zinczenko, who, in addition to being editor in chief of Men's Health, is also editorial director of its spin-off, Women's Health. In fact, his domain shrank this year when Best Life, another spin-off he helped midwife, went out of business. According to one longtime Rodale veteran, Zinczenko's status as the company's über-golden boy depended to a large degree on his close relationship with Murphy. It's hard to imagine the ridicule he incurred for using the same groupings of identically-worded cover lines over and over again for years on newsstand copies is doing his personal stock at the company much good."

A better-behaving editor (and at a magazine that serves humanity far more than does Men's Health) is SFX magazine editor Dave Golder, who -- SFX itself tweets -- won an award for Best Editor at his parent company's Future Publishing Awards.


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