Assessing Conde Nast Portfolio

Keith Kelly of The New York Post takes a look Friday at business magazine Conde Nast Portfolio and notes that while ad sales continue to remain strong and outpace competitors, there are still issues on the editorial side, where web site managing editor Chris Jones recently announced he was leaving.

Kelly wrote, “In fact, the magazine has about 150 staffers, including about 90 on the magazine and Web site, and only six have left. But the departures have been high-profile people, including Lipman’s No. 2 Jim Impoco, a magazine veteran who was fired as deputy editor. Michael Caruso, who was listed as a contributing editor but worked on major features and cover stories, also exited.

“Several high-profile writers, including Katrina Brooker and Kurt Eichenwald have also left for one reason or another, and there are rumors more are on the way.

“Jones was also told that he was going to have to start vetting his projects through Ed Felsenthal, a former top editor at The Wall Street Journal who recently signed on as a consultant. And there were rumblings that Jones, an ex-Yahoo! guy, was going to have to report to Ari Brandt, another Yahoo! alum who now works on Portfolio’s business side.

“‘He hated Brandt,’ said one source, who said Jones quit without a new job in place. He ‘has been unhappy for a while and when it looked like Lipman was going to get more involved in the Web, that was the last straw.'”

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