SURE, there’s a fabulous new gym, dizzying views of Central Park and a snazzy new cafeteria, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to stay at Hearst Magazines for life.
Melissa Biggs Bradley, the editor of critically acclaimed Town & Country Travel and the feature editor on Town & Country, is bolting from the bluebloods’ bible at month’s end after 11 years on the magazine.
She may go down as one of the first high-ranking editors to leave since the Hearsties began moving into their Norman Foster-designed glass skyscraper tower.
T&C, which published the Travel magazine as a quarterly spin-off, moved to the 33rd floor in early June.
Insiders are left wondering where Biggs Bradley is going since few seem to believe that she is going to spend more time with her family.
“As soon as I can tell you, I will,” she promised Media Ink.
But make no mistake, plenty of people still want to work inside.
Joyce Caruso Corrigan, a one-time model turned fashion writer, is joining Marie Claire as the second hire of new Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles. She’s the first hire since she and Creative Director Paul Martinez returned from the big worldwide Marie Claire Album powwow in Paris over the July 4 weekend.
The title here is half owned by Marie Claire Album and half by Hearst Magazines.
BLOOMING
In an age of shrinking news holes and shutdowns, here is some good news: Bloomberg is hiring, and not just wonky types who can digest earnings reports and commodities reporting.
“In the first six months, we hired north of 130, and our target was 150,” said Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief.
For the full year, he said he expects the headcount in the news division could rise by 200 positions.
Commodities, energy and emerging markets have been growth markets, but so is arts coverage in New York and political coverage in Washington.
Chris Nagi, managing editor of The Street.com, is about to join as a stock markets editor.
Bloomberg also began pushing global arts coverage under Manuela Holterhoff, the ex-Wall Street Journal reporter who heads something called Bloomberg Muse, which delivers news as well as a television program on weekends.
“It was nonexistent a few years ago, and now there are at least a dozen staffers and a dozen freelancers who write about the arts,” said Winkler.
Among the hires on the political and economic front are a number of high-profile refugees from print publications: Roger Simon and Matt Benjamin, who left Mort Zuckerman‘s rapidly sinking U.S. News & World Report, and Lee Walczak and Rich Miller, both formerly with BusinessWeek.
Seth Lubove, former Los Angeles Bureau Chief of Forbes, is now L.A. bureau chief of Bloomberg News and also works on Bloomberg Markets magazine.
It also comes as the company faces the stark reality that company founder Michael Bloomberg, now in his second term as mayor, plans to sell off the company he founded at some point and use the money to start a massive multi-billion dollar philanthropic foundation modeled after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
GOOD P.R.
Can anyone stand all this good news?
Wait there’s more. Rubenstein Associates, and its affiliated companies Rubenstein Public Relations and Rubenstein Communications, has expanded its public relations businesses with an additional 12,000 square feet of space to fill 60,000 square feet on two contiguous floors at 1345 Avenue of the Americas.
That has been Rubenstein’s headquarters for more than 35 years – and that alone is an accomplishment.
“Our business is more active than ever,” said Howard J. Rubenstein, who founded Rubenstein Associates in 1954. “We continue to compete regionally and nationally and this expansion reflects the growth of our business.”
His roster includes such clients as News Corp. (which owns The Post), the New York Yankees, the Tribeca Film Festival, Amazon, Time magazine, Paramount Pictures, Silverstein Properties and Tishman Speyer Properties.
And the torch is already being passed to his sons. Richard Rubenstein heads Rubenstein Public Relations and Steven Rubenstein is president of Rubenstein Communications as well as senior executive vice president of Rubenstein Associates.