Harper’s Publisher Backlash Grows After Firing Beloved Editor

by Joe Coscarelli | 9:03 am, February 3rd, 2010

» 1 comment

Yesterday, we noticed that the New York Times profile of a shifting, and possibly floundering, Harper’s magazine focused on the increasingly second-guessed moves of publisher Rick MacArthur. Tuesday, in a follow-up by the Observer‘s John Koblin, Harper’s staffers are called “queasy” about MacArthur’s “increased visibility in their lives.” Not exactly a vote of confidence in a time of turmoil.

In a visual worth as much as both pieces combined, the photograph attached to Koblin’s article (above) catches a Harper’s executive eavesdropping on the New York Times interview with MacArtuhur. One staffer, in support of recently fired editor-in-chief Roger Hodge, is quoted as saying, “He was good about keeping Rick [MacArthur] out of our hair.” Mutiny, or a mass restructuring, sounds not far off. Koblin writes:

But at this point, staffers have no confidence that Ms. Rosenbush, or anyone else, for that matter, can stand between them and Mr. MacArthur any longer. Staffers said that Mr. MacArthur has given no indication that there is a search for a new editor. A spokeswoman for the magazine said that Mr. MacArthur is “open to possibilities” of a new editor, but there was no time frame for hiring a replacement, nor is a formal search under way.

Candid quotes from anonymous staffers indicate anxiety about MacArthur’s micromanaging and the worry that “we are going to be creating this magazine for an audience of one now.” Harper’s numbers were already dwindling, but one — and maybe MacArthur soon — is indeed the loneliest.

Listening in on the Harper’s Meltdown [New York Observer]

Ellen Rosenbush, Harper's Magazine, Harpers, John Koblin, New York Observer, New York Times, Rick MacArthur, Roger D. Hodge, Roger D. Hodge Fired

kingwenclas

This change was long overdue. The discomforting truth, in my opinion, was that Roger Hodge was ethically challenged– or at the least he typified the way-of-doing-business in New York. Which means, draw on a select pool of elite writers and allow them every behavior.
See my post at http://www.kingwenclas.blogspot.com/2005/02/profound-arrogance-other-harpers.html
After this blogger made some noise about Harpers broad policy regarding plagiarism, Harpers came out with a long essay by NYC-lit wonderboy/Insider Jonathan Lethem which in effect said there is no such thing as plagiarism; everything is allowable because we writers are just random creatures adrift in the chaotic universe, or such. (Lethem’s writing is so mindnumbingly obscure, one never knows for sure exactly what he’s saying.)
Let’s hope now Harper’s lives up to its ostensible principles. I wish the new editor all luck.
Just my two cents. . . .