While I Was Away: 'Esquire,' 'WSJ,' DDM, 23/6

I was off last week, but the news never takes a holiday. A few new developments in stories I've covered here:

1)Doubledown Media shut down. You already knew it was in its death throes; last week, president Randall Lane told employees that the publisher's lender had cut it off. "[T]he combination of the media depression, the Wall Street implosion and the credit slowdown were collectively too much for our company," he explained. Lane says Doubledown is hoping to find buyers for some of its pieces, which include Trader Monthly and Dealmaker.

2)Those newsroom job cuts I told you were on the way at The Wall Street Journal? They happened. I'd heard the paper had a list of about 50 people being considered for elimination. In the end, the paper shed 25 jobs through a mix of layoffs, buyouts and leaving unfilled jobs open. (I'd also heard there might be cuts at Dow Jones Newswires; that apparently isn't happening.)

3)The American Society of Magazine Editors declared Esquire's controversial cover-flap advertisement kosher. "The board met...and, based on the recommendation of the Advertising Guidelines Committee, decided conclusively that the Obama cover did not violate the Guidelines for Editors and Publishers," says ASME CEO Sid Holt. "On the contrary, board members agreed that [editor in chief] David Granger should be congratulated on his innovative leadership." You can read Granger's take on the whole thing here.

4)The Huffington Post relaunched 23/6, the humor site it started in partnership with Barry Diller's IAC, as one of its "verticals." As I mentioned earlier, only one editorial staffer came along for the ride.

5)Slate's Jack Shafer examined what it was that made Bill Kristol's New York Times op-ed column so uniquely deplorable. "Was he being deliberately perverse about the gig, trying to test the crap-acceptance threshold of the Times with his copy?" wrote Shafer. "Or just lazy? That's my guess. Has any big-league columnist put less effort into his pieces than Kristol? If he labored more than 45 minutes on the average piece, I'd be astonished.". □

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