Categories: OLD Media Moves

Portfolio trying to live up to the hype

Meanwhile, Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman argues that Conde Nast Portfolio will have to be impressive in its first issue if it hopes to live up to its hype.

Friedman, who has visited the magazine’s offices twice in recent weeks, wrote, “Portfolio is, in a way, a victim of the modern media biz. Bloggers want to outshout one another; critics invariably find fault with anything. In a period when gossip is king, new rules can apply: Money is dirty. Ambition is something to be mocked. Give nobody the benefit of the doubt.

“Naturally, Portfolio is being covered like a big-budget Hollywood movie partly because it carries an estimated $100 million price tag (covering a span of many years). Even beyond its David Beckham connotation, critics have pounced on Conde Nast for having the chutzpah to roll out a monthly business magazine, while seasoned financial publications have been struggling for years to find new advertisers and readers.

“The Portfolio brass counters the hecklers by whispering reassuredly: They’re just jealous. At Conde Nast, they seem to think, we’re the smartest, best-educated, wittiest, best-paid journalists around. We’re special. That kind of elitism tends to grate on the so-called have-nots in the image-conscious New York media circles.

“The gossip mongers love it when Conde Nast looks bad. The other day, the New York Post’s Page Six took pains to give noogies to the company’s New Yorker, after it somehow confused the revered American poet Robert Frost with British chat-show host David Frost. Would any other magazine have been singled out? Probably not.”

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.

Recent Posts

Dynamo hires former Business Insider executive editor Harrington

Former Business Insider executive editor Rebecca Harrington has been hired by Dynamo to be its…

20 hours ago

Bloomberg TV hires Kerubo as desk producer

Bloomberg Television has hired Brenda Kerubo as a desk producer in London. She will be covering Europe's…

20 hours ago

Jittery CNBC staff reassured by new boss

In a meeting at CNBC headquarters Thursday afternoon, incoming boss Mark Lazarus presented a bullish…

21 hours ago

Making business news accessible to a wider audience

Ritika Gupta, the BBC's North American business correspondent, was interviewed by Global Woman magazine about…

21 hours ago

Rest of World hires Lo as China reporter

Rest of World has hired Kinling Lo as a China reporter. Lo was previously a…

21 hours ago

Bloomberg rises to No. 7 biz news website

Bloomberg News saw strong unique visitor growth to its website in October, passing Fox Business…

22 hours ago