Howard Gold, writing in Columbia Journalism Review about the demise of Time Inc., writes about how CNNMoney.com was the best result of Time Warner’s acquisition by AOL.
Gold writes, “Several people told CJR that AOL’s CEO at the time, Bob Pittman, was the driving force behind a forced marriage that remained unhappy until Money.com went its separate way after the 2014 spin-off of Time Inc.
“‘CNN Money [was] born because Pittman wanted an announcement at the first earnings call’ in 2001, says Matters, who was the site’s founding editor. ‘They wanted a ‘synergy’ announcement.’
“CNNMoney became one of the most popular business and investing websites, just behind Yahoo Finance and MSN Money.
“Although Money magazine provided its features to CNNMoney, whose editor reported to Time Inc., not CNN, the magazine had no control of its own online destiny. Even worse off was Fortune, which was relegated to a subsidiary position on CNNMoney and didn’t even have its name in the title, a source of great frustration at the magazine.
“John Huey, former editor of Fortune who was then editorial director of Time Inc., oversaw CNNMoney. He says he doesn’t think separate sites, one for Money and one for Fortune, would have been a panacea.”
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