Wenner Media is bringing back one of its top guns to help Men’s Journal beat out rivals Esquire and GQ.
Robert Wallace, former Talk executive editor and a veteran of magazine and television news, has been named editor of Wenner Media’s Men’s Journal magazine.
Wallace, who will start his new job on Sept. 4, replaces Sid Evans, the editor of Men’s Journal for the past year and a half. Evans will be leaving the company, but has not decided on future career plans, a Wenner spokesman said.
Wallace, 51, brings to his new post nearly 30 years of editorial experience in both magazine and television media. The industry veteran was a longtime executive editor of Wenner’s Rolling Stone magazine and a senior producer of ABC’s “Prime Time Live.”
Wenner is betting that Wallace, with his varied background, will help the magazine go head to head with the other men’s publications.
“Men’s Journal is already number one in the Adventure category,” said Wenner Media CEO Jann Wenner in a printed statement. “I’m looking for Bob to get it ready to become number one in the General Interest category against GQ and Esquire.”
For Wallace, the move to Men’s Journal is a homecoming of sorts. The executive began his career at Rolling Stone, in San Francisco; his two stints at the magazine spanned 15 years. Wallace is even credited with coming up with the name, “Men’s Journal.”
Under Wallace’s direction as executive editor, Rolling Stone was nominated for 18 National Magazine Awards.
In between his first and second run at Rolling Stone, Wallace held top editing spots at Newsweek, Rocky Mountain magazine and the Denver Post. Wallace left Rolling Stone the second time to become a senior producer at ABC News, where he won an Emmy for a piece on the African rainforest.
After that, he became editor in chief of St. Martin’s Press and most recently was a vice president of now-defunct Talk Media.