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R E C E N T L Y

Mammary dreams
By Steve Erickson
Behind men's moral outrage at Clinton's behavior seethes the fear that his compulsion is just one step beyond our own
(02/03/99)

The little N-word
By James Poniewozik
So we're all cool with "niggardly" now. Uh ... aren't we?
(02/02/99)

Wills to Sheehy: Your Clinton-incest psychobabble grows tiresome
By Susan Lehman
Plus: Gazoongas raise Maxim, Mother Jones searches in vain and other tales of media madness
(01/28/99)

Revolt of the elitists
By James Poniewozik
Two new media studies amplify the death cries of the literate overclass
(01/27/99)

The man without principles
By James Poniewozik
The career of the great German cultural critic Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a case study in the virtues of intellectual inconsistency
(01/27/99)

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BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVE

ROLLING STONE GATHERS A $50 MILLION LAWSUIT; CONDÉ NAST'S FIRING LINE, PART 57 | PAGE 1, 2
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Condé Nast's Firing Line

Dispatching editors has long been something of a blood sport at Condé Nast. In fact, Michael Caruso's removal at Details on Monday -- a full three days after Maxim editor Mark Golin had been offered, and had accepted, Caruso's job -- was, as Nast axings go, delicately handled.

Caruso, whose friends gave him a little box with two scorpions in it to commemorate his time at Condé Nast, was advised of his status change at a meeting he requested with editorial director James Truman and company president and CEO Steven T. Florio Monday morning, after a New York Post story suggested Golin would soon assume his job. (A source at Maxim says the rumor mill has it that Golin will receive $500,000, plus a car and driver, to helm the mag.)

"Firing is blood sport over there," says Carol Felsenthal, whose portrait of Condé Nast owner Si Newhouse and his empire, "Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant," was published last fall. Firings are most awkward, Felsenthal says, when Newhouse is involved. Despite his power and money, "Newhouse is an awkward man with little self-confidence," says Felsenthal. "He lacks the human touch and never knows how to go about these things."

The only time Newhouse evinced any awareness of the human consequence of joblessness, Felsenthal says, was when he found famed Vogue editor and fashion maven Diana Vreeland staring at him across a desk. Though Newhouse had a henchman let Vreeland know her services were no longer needed, Vreeland apparently wished to hear the news from Si himself. After a long silence, Newhouse apparently found the courage and the words to let Vreeland go -- but was spooked by nightmares for some time afterward.

After the Vreeland incident, Newhouse may have learned he could keep the incubus at bay if he simply didn't bother to let employees know they had been terminated. In a famed instance of Condé Nast's latter-day hands-off method of letting workers go, Vogue editor Grace Mirabella learned she'd been fired when gossip columnist Liz Smith announced on "Live at Five" that Anna Wintour would be taking her job. As for former Details editor Joe Dolce, Newhouse and his henchmen didn't have to bother letting him know what was what: Dolce says he learned he was about to be axed when a friend told him he'd been approached for Dolce's job.

"Completely clumsy," Dolce says of his former employer's removal methods. "Either that or they just enjoy the sport of torturing their people."

Trotting through the rich treasure trove of Condé Nast firing history, Felsenthal recalls dirty deed after dirty deed. Si Newhouse descended upon former Self editor Anthea Disney's summer home in Connecticut to let her know she was out. (Felsenthal reports that Newhouse turned ashen and took several quick steps back when, moments after Disney got the bad news, Disney's husband, fresh from cutting trees, appeared with a chain saw.)

Newhouse reportedly used the same "get 'em while they're on vacation" strategy to oust former House and Garden editor Louis Gropp. While vacationing in California, Gropp received a call from Newhouse, who mentioned there had been lots of stories in Women's Wear Daily saying that Anna Wintour was going to take over House and Garden. Gropp apparently asked Newhouse "Is it true?" Newhouse replied, "Yes."

Then there was Edith Raymond Locke, who worked at Mademoiselle from 1949 until she was axed in 1980. Only the serendipitous fact that she responded first to a message to call Newhouse prevented her from learning about her firing from a Ladies Home Journal editor, who called to tell her that her assistant, Amy Levin Cooper, had been hired to replace Locke. But Felsenthal finds Glamour editor Ruth Whitney's recent dispatch most galling of all: Though Newhouse honored Whitney by setting up a journalism scholarship in her name and frequently noted that Glamour had consistently saved Condé Nast's bottom line, no one bothered, during the three weeks it reportedly took to get Bonnie Fuller to agree to replace Whitney, to tell her that her time was up.

Firing is never pleasant, but matters do seem harsher at 350 Madison Avenue than necessary. The price paid, perhaps, for all the much-discussed perks that accompany Condé Nast paychecks (like cars and drivers)? James Truman did not return calls seeking comment on these and related questions.

Comings and Goings

In this crazy, mixed-up world of editorial axings and clichéd Bogie quotations, Vanity Fair's staff remains relatively constant. After a six-year stint, the magazine's beloved deputy editor, George Hodgman, plans to leave what one Vanity Fair staffer called the "velvet coffin." Hodgman, who edits Gail Sheehy, Judy Bachrach, Cathy Horyn, Peter Biskind and Buzz Bissinger, says that after repeatedly going through the process of constructing pieces with other writers, he's been reminded of the fact that he'd like to write again himself. Plus, Hodgman says, he turned 40 last week and no longer wants to find himself inside the building at 350 Madison Avenue on weekends and holidays toiling away under a fluorescent light. Hodgman may help edit Gail Sheehy's upcoming Hillary Clinton biography ... Michael Kramer, the freshly departed editor of Brill's Content, has resurfaced. The New York Daily News announced that Kramer will edit a new opinion section for the Sunday Daily News ... Richard Eder, the L.A. Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning book reviewer, is off to the New York Times, where he will write reviews on a contract basis for both the Sunday and weekly sections. No, this does not mean Times lead reviewer Michiko Kakutani is cutting back, says Times culture editor John Darnton.
SALON | Feb. 4, 1999

Susan Lehman's Media Circus column appears every Thursday.