New York gossip glossy goes ahead despite scandal

Posted by Jeffrey Blyth on 25 April 2006 at 13:45
Tags: Journalism, United States

Despite the scandal still swirling over its “Page Six” gossip page, th New York Post is pushing ahead with its plan to produce a second issue of a  glossy magazine spinoff of the column.

The second issue of Page Six Magazine is due out later this year, but will feature one big difference: Its editor will not be Jared Paul Stern, the fastidiously-dressed freelance who has been accused of trying to shake down California billionaire Ron Burkle for keeping stories about him out of the column.

Since the scandal broke, Stern and three other freelance gossips have been let go. So the next issue of Page Six Magazine will be edited by Richard Johnson, who has for long edited the column.According to the Post’s publicist, Howard Rubenstein, the first issue of the Page Six Magazine was well-received by advertisers, many of whom signed up for the second issue. A full-page ad in the first issue sold for $34,000, but that how now been raised to $36,000.

More than a third of the glossy’s advertisers have been mentioned in the “Page Six” column in recent months — a fact not lost on the New York Times, which is delighting in thrashing the mag. “Purely coincidentalâ€?, insists the Post publicist.

Meanwhile the New York Times, has dropped its own gossip column, “Boldface Names”, after five years. Nothing to do with the scandal at the Post, the Times insists – although some staff did comment that the timing was a “little funnyâ€?.

In fact, the column was so obscure that not many people realized the Times even had a gossip column. Buried in the Metro Section, Boldface Names was a small and usually innocuous compendium of Broadway premiers, art gallery openings and celebrity book parties.

The journalist who compiled the column, 29-year-old Campbell Robertson, is switching to the showbiz beat. At least that is better, he admitted, than the original job he was offered – to be the paper’s “regional education reporter�.

Tags: Journalism, United States