Awaiting Help, 'Plenty' Feels the Pinch

A few months back, I told you that Kevin Wall, a media entrepreneur and sometime partner of Al Gore, was on the verge of taking an ownership position in the environmental magazine Plenty.

That deal is still in the offing, but in the meantime, Plenty is feeling a money crunch. To deal with it, the magazine laid off "a little over half" its editorial staff yesterday, according to editor in chief and publisher Mark Spellun. (Gawker had reported that "almost the entire staff" was being let go.) The publication schedule is also being "adjusted": Plenty has been coming out bimonthly, but it's unclear how many print issues, if any, it will produce in 2009.

Presumably, that number will depend on what kind of cash infusion the company gets from Wall. Spellun acknowledged that there "was a collapse" in the discussions, but says they're back on track: "We should have some sort of announcement on that in a little while."