The media world—it changes. A few years ago, Conde Nast was a golden castle on the hill, and the internet was a squatter’s hovel/ “artist’s colony” far below. But lo! Now, former Nasties are flooding the internet themselves. In the wake of former House & Garden editor Dominique Browning’s chronicle of her post-layoff descent into egg-obsessed madness John Koblin has taken an informal survey of the former editors of Conde Nast magazines that were shuttered in the Great Magazine Die-Off. Cookie ‘s Pilar Guzman is creating a website. Domino’ s Deborah Needleman is starting a website. Jane ‘s Brandon Holley is already running a website. It’s worth noting what none of these former queens of the magazine world are doing: running a magazine. These are former Conde Nast editors . They should, ostensibly, have their pick of magazine jobs—if not ones quite as prestigious as their last ones, at least somewhere close on a masthead elsewhere. Instead, they’re all fleeing magazines altogether in favor of the web. And many of them are planning to start websites, a pretty brazen gamble even during good economic times. Magazine jobs are no longer secure, lucrative, or abundant enough to even be a viable option for those who would have had a whole buffet of them to choose from not long ago. Internet media jobs are no more secure (trust us!), but the barrier to entry is low. Might as well give it a shot! There’s always the Peace Corps if this doesn’t work out. [ NYO ]
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Conde Nast and the End of Magazine Jobs [The Future]
