Categories: OLD Media Moves

Critiquing Safian's first issue of Fast Company

The Jossip blog has a thorough critique of the May issue of Fast Company magazine, which is the first under the helm of new editor Robert Safian, who came over from Fortune magazine.

Jossip noted, “For starters, we could’ve done without the Facebook kid on the cover. Yes, we understand it’s the era of ‘You’ and the twentysomething kids getting rich off their dorm room projects – which, ahem, is the story of Jossip – but must we look at Mark Zuckerberg once more after incessant coverage elsewhere? And while we’re on the subject, is it worth devoting an entire page – page 3! – to re-highlighting the cover story?

“Moving inside the book, we’ll give the “Letter from the CEO” an A+, if only because John Koten calls FC ‘the only truly modern business magazine.’ Take that, Portfolio.

Later, Jossip concluded, “If we hadn’t been told, we wouldn’t know that Safian took over as editor this issue. And with Portfolio causing such a media raucous, we’re going to need a little more to divvy up our attention.

“No final judgment for Safian just yet, but in the next issue, let’s see if we can put more numbers on the cover. We hear they sell magazines.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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