adweek reporting:
Stewart Pinkerton’s new book, The Fall of the House of Forbes,
reveals a lot about the magazine’s history—including the fact that its
longtime publisher Malcolm Forbes died from suicide, not heart failure
as reported. But the real story here is about a nearly century-old
institution that splintered in the face of technological change and
financial recession. In this week’s Fast Chat, Pinkerton, the magazine’s
former managing editor, tells Adweek what he thinks went wrong.
Why did you write this book?
The legendary editor Jim Michaels was incredibly brilliant but
incredibly irascible. He’d strike terror in your heart. After a
particularly dramatic editorial meeting—Jim was just apoplectic about
something, and throwing pencils—I was walking out with a colleague, and
he said, “If anybody ever wrote this down, nobody would ever believe
it.” So I thought, maybe I should take notes.
What was so unbelievable?
There was no advance planning, issues came together at the last minute,
Jim would rip into stories that had already been transmitted. It
worked, but it was really scary. The proprietors, especially during the
‘90s, were just riding the crest of the economic boom. It would be
really hard to screw it up. But when the protection of that economic
expansion went away, some of the decisions didn’t look so good.
When did the Forbes decline begin?
Malcolm died in 1990. His death set into motion a whole cascading of
events that took a long time to unwind, but that clearly was the
trigger. Michaels retiring in 1999—that was another clear moment of
truth. You had, in effect, Apple Computer without Wozniak and Jobs.
You’ve got the guy who made it work and the visionary. You take those
two out of the equation, and over time that has an impact.
And why did it fall?
...
http://www.adweek.com/news/press/forbes-legends-fall-135416
No comments:
Post a Comment