Fortune’s Murray in running to replace Pearlstine

Fortune magazine editor Alan Murray is one of the leading candidates to replace parent company Time Inc. chief content officer Norman Pearlstine, reports Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison.

Ellison writes, “Pearlstine, 73, has had an extraordinarily prodigious career in journalism. He spent the early part of it at The Wall Street Journal, where he eventually rose to executive editor. He subsequently guided Time Inc.’s editorial operation through two tumultuous periods of its existence — first, leading the division through the now infamous Time Warner-AOL merger before, more recently, overseeing a significant culture change as Time Inc. was spun out as a public company.

“While Pearlstine served Time Inc. twice, in some ways he actually helped oversee two entirely different companies.

“The editor in chief of Time Inc. was always a unique job in journalism. Its occupant reported not to a publisher, but rather to the board of the company (and, later, the C.E.O.). The position had been laid out in the Donovan charter, created by Hedley Donovan, who succeeded Time Inc.’s legendary co-founder and editor in chief Henry Luce.”

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