Adam Raymond, 23, is a recent casualty of what Gawker deemed the Great Magazine Die-Off. He was an associate editor at Radar, a magazine that unceremoniously folded, possibly for good this time, the week before Halloween.
Unfortunately, plenty more magazine editors are joining Raymond in unemployment, thanks to corporate-wide layoffs at all of the big publishing houses. Time Inc. plans to lay off 600 employees, and they’ve already shuttered Cottage Living and let go dozens at Entertainment Weekly. After folding CosmoGirl and O at Home, Hearst continued with layoffs at Redbook, Good Housekeeping, and Esquire, among others. Even seemingly invincible Condé Nast has ordered its magazines to cut five percent from their staffs, folded DNR, a menswear trade pub, and is phasing out Men’s Vogue.
Rumors have also been spreading about unofficial hiring freezes, or “chills,” at various companies. An HR rep at one of the major magazine publishers wouldn’t confirm any official policy but confides: “Right now, I’m not granting informational interviews because I’m working to place those misplaced from here.”
“Hiring freezes are less discouraging to me than hearing about jobs being cut,” Raymond says. “The freezes will probably end at some point, but I don’t think those cut jobs will come back,” he says, referring to the Esquire assistant editor position that reportedly won’t be filled.
But others believe the situation is not as dire as it seems. Freelance prospects have increased as corporations have turned staff positions into permalance gigs that offer some semblance of job stability, minus the benefits. Some Edsters are starting full-time freelance positions at O , Lucky, Marie Claire, and WWD. And more job opportunities supposedly will be available in 2009 with the new annual budgets.
One Time Inc. employee believes some layoffs will result in a more streamlined and productive staff. The staffer explained that many of those axed at Entertainment Weekly were associate editors whose main responsibility was flowing text into and fitting it in InCopy. “Upper level editors and copy editors will probably have to absorb that work now,” the staffer says, “but there still is and will always be a need for young, energetic entry-level people.”
Raymond is managing to survive in New York by freelancing for news site The Daily Beast after Radar founder and EIC Maer Roshan told his former employees about the opportunity. “Reaching out to my contacts in the industry was what helped me the most after I lost my job. They were really nice and understanding and told me they’d throw things my way,” he says. Raymond also advises job-hunters to be open to the internet. “Everything that has come up since I lost my job has been online,” he says.
But with the recent hiring chills, even freelance gigs are hard to come by. Sarah, 22, was scheduled to do some freelance work at a fashion publication, but the executive editor pulled out at the last moment. More recently, Sarah was contacted by Condé Nast to interview for a freelance position. The day before her meeting, she got a call saying they weren’t going to be hiring anymore. So Sarah took another unpaid internship—where all of the other interns were also college grads. “No one has the budget [to pay anyone],” she says, but the work still needs to get done.
It’s tough out there, but at least unemployment benefits are being extended for those who need it beyond the cutoff-dates of the past. Still, Ed can’t help but wish the government would include the magazine industry in their bailout plan.
