Cafeteria Eating Destroys the Myth of Condé Nast

You know reality is really biting at Condé Nast these days when Graydon Carter is taking his bites in the cafeteria! In a lede that a year ago could have come straight out the Onion, today’s New York Observer article informs us that Graydon Carter was recently spotted at the stir fry station in the Condé cafeteria. Cry me a McKinsey river, right?

It seems that the economy hasn’t just killed ad sales at Condé, it’s killed the myth of Condé…for the people at Condé. Is this news for the rest of the media world? Not so much. [ UPDATE: A reader writes in to tell us that actually they spotted Graydon eating at the Conde cafeteria waaaay back in the boom years of 2006 — he was having lunch with Si at the time. So perhaps some shaken staffers are seeing what they want to see.] Three weeks into the dreaded McKinsey evalution the Condé folk are apparently suffering from paranoia, if not much else — notwithstanding missing receptionists, free sodas in the fridge, and newspapers, Graydon Carter assures things are much the same at 4 Times Sq. as they always were. Except: They are no longer the envy of the magazine world. Of course who is these days? Maybe David Remnick?

Here’s the most interesting little nugget to come out of the whole story: The New Yorker, and its entire editorial staff, is apparently exempt from the ongoing McKinsey evaluation.

Two well-placed sources said that Condé Nast’s chairman, Si Newhouse, reached out to Mr. Remnick shortly after the McKinsey announcement was made and told him not to worry about anything—the magazine would be just fine, and neither McKinsey nor company executives would be mucking with his editorial costs. (Mr. Remnick declined to comment, and Mr. Townsend said, “When Si and David speak at the lunch they have periodically, God knows what’s communicated between them.”)

God knows! What’s also unclear is whether this exemption is a result of Si’s personal affection for the magazine or a measure of something else, like say, the New Yorker folks haven’t had their heads stuck up their asses the last five years. Here’s a few reasons why it might be the latter:

1. Content is king. Not only does The New Yorker produce top-notch content but it’s also the sort of content that can be more easily re-purposed for the web (as opposed to say a Vogue editorial).

2. The New Yorker actually does repurpose their content for the web. Unlike almost every other magazine in the Conde Nast stable, the New Yorker has a vibrant website that is actually used for things other than facilitating magazine subscriptions.

3. David Remnick doesn’t need McKinsey to help him find the bottom line. There was a very telling piece in the Observer last January about how New Yorker reporters who went to DC to cover the festivities, including Remnick, had bunked with friends instead of booking expensive hotels. For all his cafeteria browsing it’s hard to imagine the same ever being said of Graydon Carter.