Bits and bobs from the media beat...
- Is Gwyneth Paltrow planning to start her own
food magazine? Keith J Kelly of the New York Post thinks so. Grub Street New York surmises that this would be a very good idea because: readers would buy it ("it's no big secret that two big things sell magazines Рcelebrities and recipes"); advertisers would buy it ("Are you a maker of an organic/natural/luxury/homeopathic/bio-dynamic lifestyle product?"); she's already got GOOP and has a cookbook coming out; the heartland is warming to her; she's a promoter's dream; single-celeb mags are definitely a "thing" (see Oprah, Jamie, Rachel Ray); Tina Fey would read it; "girl is pretty connected"; and Hearst is apparently intrigued by the idea. Gwyneth overkill? Why not. Bring. It. On. - Hearst has finalised the purchase of titles from French publisher Lagard̬re, including Elle Decor and the rights to Elle magazine outside of France. (Hearst is also Min Online's 2010 ad page champion.)
- 60 Minutes reporter Liz Hayes has been interviewed
by Mediaweek after returning to Sydney from Tokyo. "We had about four hours' notice to get on the plane and try to get there," she says, adding that after turning around a story on the earthquake and tsunami for the Sunday evening show, the story quickly evolved from "Shock Wave" to "this huge nuclear story", which posed further professional problems: "You know what news outfits are like. They want you to get to the epicentre, then they're telling you to get out, and getting out was against every fibre in your body, and then you're asking, 'what are they basing this on?'. You have people saying, 'How come you haven't got this?', and you say, 'because I'm not sure if it's true'." Hayes has been in the job for 15 years, starting 1996, following stints presenting the news and Today on Nine. - Hayes is in a minority. The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media has found that of Australian
journalists at the senior professional level (senior writers, editors, anchors), just 40.4% are women, while almost none (10%) exist at top-level management. Hence, women are not heavily involved in defining news and shaping company decisions in this country.Women hold fewer than one third of top media jobs globally, according to the International Women’s Media Foundation, which surveyed 170,000 people within 522 newspaper, radio and television companies across 59 nations.
"Women in every region of the world still face many barriers - whether it is lower salaries than their male counterparts or lack of access to decision-making jobs in the newsroom," IWMF Executive Director Liza Gross said in a statement.
Six Australian news companies – 2 newspapers, 2 television stations and 2 radio stations – participated in the study, together employing approximately 2,000, including 952 women and 1,019 men.
The report found that in UK news companies (16 surveyed, employing 11,8000 people) more women are in management (30.2%) and governance (36.5%) positions but represent just 29.5% of employees at senior management level: "women face a glass ceiling that seems fixed at the junior professional level, where journalists hold junior-level reporting, editing and producing jobs....[and] exhibit entrenched institutional practices of marginalizing women in their newsrooms and decision-making hierarchies"
The report notes that magazine and Internet-only companies were not included, as their structures and staffing are typically different from those of the more traditional companies. Still, noted one online journalist in response to The Digital Gloss Files, Don't you think it's interesting that women may be better users of social media and citizen journalism tools but it's the fellas heading up plans for our digital consumption in our top newsrooms? Also of note, Fairfax's head of digital is a woman (Pippa Leary) and so too is The Sydney Morning Herald's editor and Fairfax Magazines head. News Magazines has a female chief executive, but at ACP Magazines and Pacific Magazines, there are still fellas at the very top.
Wintour says: "To be in Vogue means something...Not all of them become friends, but it's part of my job to get to know these people and try to understand who they are, what they are and what future they have. I won't pretend that I'm sitting here with a spreadsheet . . . 'Now it's time to reach out to LeBron James.' It's instinctive." [Levin notes the LeBron/Gisele cover bombed on the newsstand.]
She later adds: "I think we have a Vogue vocabulary, and there are certain people we like to have as the backbone of the magazine—Vogue's signposts. We try very hard to integrate the familiar signatures with people we feel are new and up-and-coming, but I would rather err on the side of being a little more familiar than being too . . . What's the right word? . . .Edgy?"
And: "With all the new media outlets out there, with all the noise, a voice of authority and calm like Vogue becomes more important than ever. The more eyes on fashion, the more opinions about fashion, the more exploration of fashion around the world, the better it is for Vogue. Vogue is like Nike or Coca-Cola—this huge global brand. I want to enhance it, I want to protect it, and I want it to be part of the conversation."
- Speaking of global brands, Vogue cover girl Lady Gaga now has a regular column in avant garde fashion journal V Magazine, spreading her global domination to the print medium and, in turn, potentially bringing her millions of Little Monsters to the magazine itself (double yikes). "Starting with our next issue, V71, Gaga will be gracing us with the presence of her pen, as she weighs in on all things fashion throughout her multiverse!" exhorts a clearly enraptured V. Illustrators are being called on to submit their art to accompany Gaga's debut column via drawnthisway@vmagazine.com.
- W magazine sales: not so crash hot?
- Kate Moss appears on the May cover of Harper's Bazaar UK. Twice.
- The Australian advertising industry is dishing out The Glossy Awards, with a bloke as its mascot. The Yaffa Publishing initiative is designed to celebrate "outstanding creativity in magazine advertising" while aiding agencies in their AdNews Annual Ranking and dangling a $5000 cash prize incentive for the winner of the Grand Prix Award. "The Glossy Awards will not only recognise and applaud stand-out advertising creativity in magazines, it will reflect the reality of digital and integrated campaigns as part of the new landscape. Long gone are print campaigns in isolation; creatives are now building integrated creative campaigns across all platforms – magazine, web, mobile and e-reader applications." I wonder how much of the material entered will be sexist and/or sexualised? It would be great to see the panel taking a stance on representations of women.
- Aziz Ansari fronts Paper magazine's 14th Most
Beautiful People issue. The 28-year-old comedian/actor, who stars in Parks and Recreation (think The Office but in a park setting), is described by Paper as "accessible and cool" with a life that sort of "resembles the New York magazine Approval Matrix". He hangs out with Kanye West and appeared in I Love You Man with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel and Funny People with Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. He has two new films in the pipeline: the upcoming robber comedy 30 Minutes or Less and the road-trip movie Let's Do This, as well as the astronaut movie he's co-written. Ansari attended the Paper mag launch party at Hudson Hotel on Wednesday night. - Meet US ELLE magazine editor Robbie Myers' assistant, Seth Plattner (via The Fix).
- Min Online gives us the Top 5 Magazine Video Shows You Haven't Seen But Should, including Mad shorts, which takes aim at contemporary popular culture and sometimes piles on more cultural references than five minutes of Family Guy.
- Time Out's redesign comes as publishers confront digital's inevitable infringement on print advertising. Pricewaterhouse Coopers executive director Megan Brownlow told a Publishers Australia AGM that the magazine industry's share of total advertising revenue will drop from 5% to 4% by 2014 marking a 20% drop in the industry's share, reports AdNews.
- Stylist Rachel Zoe has tweeted her baby.
- Actress Kim Cattrall says being a gossip reporter isn't a respectable job.
- The Guardian reports that "a total of 79,000 people pay to subscribe to the Times and Sunday Times online, on an iPad or via a Kindle, a gain of 29,000 over the past five months", according to figures for the end of February released by News Corporation on Tuesday.
- According to a new study from the Harvard University Institute of Politics, 49 percent of Millenials said that national newspapers were their preferred source of political news, reports Flavorwire, adding, "While researchers failed to differentiate between the print and online versions of said papers, it’s certainly a vote of confidence in these long-established brands."
- The Guardian is expanding its masthead into the U.S. market.
- Popular Science magazine has sold 10,000 iPad subscriptions.
- James Murdoch has been made deputy chief operating officer, chairman and CEO of News Corporation International, reporting to president and chief operating officer Chase Carey and his father, chairman and CEO of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch.
"James has demonstrated in an array of roles that he is a shrewd and decisive operator who can deftly navigate complex issues to transform businesses. He has equally shown a unique understanding of the emerging technologies and the digital forces that are reshaping our industry," said Carey. "As we become increasingly global and consumer focused, we believe there are real opportunities to add new dimensions to our core businesses. We are confident that James’ deep knowledge of international markets, his proven leadership, and his passionate focus on building consumer relationships make him the ideal person to help us realize these opportunities across all our companies."
- Andrew Bolt is not having a good time in court (does anyone?). The senior Australian journalist is being sued by a collective of nine prominent members of the Aboriginal community for racial discrimination. Updates via Crikey, The Australian; The Age.
Girl With a Satchel
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