Ryan Tate of Valleywag reports that Wired editor Chris Anderson was missing from the office earlier this week when the tech-oriented magazine laid off staff members. Anderson says he was on a “sales call” at Hewlett-Packard
Tate reports, “Where was Anderson that day? Delivering a no doubt gainful lecture for Hewlett Packard in Silicon Valley. A spokesperson tells us Anderson was in the office ‘all morning,’ when the firings occurred, before heading off to HP. But Anderson’s absence for so much of such a sensitive day at Wired is great ammunition for his critics at Condé Nast, who have long said Anderson’s too distracted by his approximately 50 annual lecture gigs, some in far-flung locales like Norway.
“It’s one thing for Anderson to delegate editorial tasks to lieutenants like executive editor Thomas Goetz or his predecessor Bob Cohn, who jumped to The Atlantic, in plusher times. But with advertising down 50 percent through May, Anderson should — arguably! — be a fixture on the front lines at Wired. Instead he’s tweeting his two-week book tour schedule, which reads as follows: ‘SF, Munich, Naples, Capri, NYC, Toronto, Chicago, Copenhagen, Billund, Manchester, Orlando. Sigh…’
“‘Sigh’ indeed, Chris. But at least all that time away from home and office will help bolster your independent revenue stream. Bet your ex editors wish they had created one of those! When they weren’t picking up the slack for absent co-workers, that is.”
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