Mere speculation, but this would be a huge hit to investigative journalism:
Conde Nast shuttered Domino earlier today and unless things turn around quick (don’t hold your breath), the magazine publisher will undoubtedly be looking to make more cuts. Could The New Yorker be next?
At first glance, you’d immediately assume no. David Remnick’s book consistently produces some of the best journalism around. Year in, year out, its assured multiple Ellie noms and a couple of wins. But the economics might end up forcing Si Newhouse to kill his baby.
The mag’s struggles to retain advertisers have been well documented. Earlier today, Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan called it the company’s “Plutonium loser” for seeing its ad pages drop 26.8 percent over last year. (We would have gone with “Adamantium loser” but we quibble.)
The February 2 issue paints an even more dire picture. Checking in at 83 pages, it features — by our count — a mere 15 pages of ads, or roughly 18 percent. Five of those pages, however, are “house ads” for New Yorker or Conde Nast products, bringing the total paid ad pages down to 12 percent. That, my friends, is not good. Not good at all.
The question might be not can Conde afford to shutter The NYer but rather can the publisher afford not to.
(via Steven Walling)