NYC publishers tell employees to work from home

The city’s biggest publishers are telling their employees to work from home in response to the worsening coronavirus crisis.

Vanity Fair and Penguin Random House, the book publishing giant, joined the New Yorker and Meredith, the nation’s biggest magazine publisher, among major media outlets urging employees to work at home until at least the end of March.

The New Yorker’s parent company, Condé Nast, initially said working from home was optional for its employees at One World Trade Center. By Wednesday afternoon a handful of Conde Nast titles said they would refuse all package deliveries to Vanity Fair, Allure, Glamour, Teen Vogue and Self and urged staffers on those magazines to work from home. The New Yorker had moved to send its employees home Wednesday morning.

“The New Yorker Magazine just sent out a directive: work from home until March 31,” tweeted TNY writer Jane Mayer. “My dog, aka research assistant, is all in.”

Penguin Random, the nation’s largest book publisher followed suit Wednesday afternoon. PRH US CEO Madeline McIntosh said in a memo to staffers, “given the quickly-moving developments in the New York City region, I know that many people may no longer feel comfortable commuting or working in our New York City offices. Therefore, if any of you working at 1745 or 1450 Broadway can work from home, we encourage you to speak with your supervisor to make plans to do so.”

The World Health Organization officially classified coronavirus as a pandemic Wednesday.

Meredith — which owns People, InStyle and Better Homes & Gardens — is telling employees in its New York, Chicago and Stamford, Conn., offices to work from home, although the offices will technically remain open.

So far, Meredith has not directed employees at its Des Moines, Iowa, headquarters to stay home. It had already ordered 140 employees in its Seattle office, where it produces All Recipes, to work from home.

Business Insider already had a big percentage of its employees working from home, but starting Thursday it will be mandatory, the digital publisher announced Wednesday. Vice Media on Monday had told employees who could work from home to do so after it said an employee in its Brooklyn office was exposed to the COVID-19 virus.

“While this exposure is unconfirmed, we are putting in place a work from home measure to decrease the likelihood of exposure..” the company said in a memo. The company had not responded to a query Wednesday on the status of the employee who had been exposed.

Hearst, the publisher of Cosmopolitan and O, the Oprah Magazine, previously told its employees that working from home was optional for employees in the Hearst Tower.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with CNBC that he was going to request that all employers allow their employees to telecommute.

So far, at least 48 people have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus in New York City, including 30 in mandatory quarantine. Across New York State there were at least 212. The US count has surpassed 1,000 people with coronavirus and at least 31 have died.