Portfolio website ME leaving

Irin Carmon of Women’s Wear Daily writes Thursday that Chris Jones, the managing editor of Portfolio.com, announced his resignation to his staff on Wednesday.

Carmon wrote, “Jones, who gave notice to editor in chief Joanne Lipman a month ago, had told friends he was unhappy. Edward Felsenthal, formerly a deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, was brought in to consult, including on the Web site, though Lipman wrote WWD in an e-mail late Wednesday that ‘Chris made his decision long before Edward arrived, and there’s no connection between the two events.’ Jones also reportedly clashed with Lipman about hiring choices, according to three sources close to the magazine, though he did win battles on hiring former Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove and former Radar and WWD reporter Jeff Bercovici. Lipman denied this.

“Relations also were strained with his staff, according to three sources. Jones, who has agreed to stay on through the end of next month as a consultant, did not return calls for comment. Mark Stein, the senior news editor of the Web site, will be interim deputy editor until a replacement is found. A spokeswoman for the magazine said Web traffic has met or exceeded expectations, and provided figures showing a growth of monthly unique visitors from around 300,000 in the spring to just over a million estimated in October.

“Still, more changes may be afoot: high-level discussion is said to be under way about divesting Lipman of oversight of the Web site, with a possible new reporting structure to Portfolio.com’s general manager, Ari Brandt, on the business side.”

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