AS most of the Fairchild operation continues to be dismantled and crunched into Condé Nast, at least two key people who resigned when the division was still a separate fiefdom run by former Fairchild president Mary Berner are returning to their old homes.
Chris Mitchell, who made a short-lived detour last year to run a small SoHo-based high end furniture company called BDDW, is back as the publisher of Details.
That’s the same job he quit last October when Berner was still his boss. He replaces Paul Jowdy, who after only three months at Details will be vice president and publisher of Bon Appetit, another Condé title. There he replaces Leslie Picard who left for Time, Inc. as senior vice president and sales and marketing director.
And in the dusty old trade division of Fairchild, Warren Shoulberg, editor-in-chief of the trade Home Furnishing News – who was given the old heave-ho by Berner – is back.
Mitchell dispelled the notion that it was a feud with Berner that drove him out.
“I decided I wanted to try something different, but it was clear after a few weeks it wasn’t going to work out,” he told Media Ink.
He said he actually broached the idea of coming back with Berner and she was supportive.
Insiders say it was a different story with Shoulberg. Berner didn’t like him very much, insisted one source.
Shoulberg replaces Arnie Carr, a longtime Women’s Wear Daily man who had departed the company after running HFN only a few months.
The new lineup of the dismantled Fairchild is still going through some upheavals.
Some of the business side trade publications such as Woman’s Wear Daily now report to Golf Digest boss Mitchell Fox, while Details, W and Jane from the old Fairchild now report directly to the big boss, Condé Nast CEO Charles Townsend. And on some projects there is a dotted line reporting to the president of the Condé Nast Media group, headed by Richard “Mad Dog” Beckman.
“It’s all very confusing to people,” said one source.
Part of it may come a little clearer next week, when the new, larger (and hopefully improved) Condé Nast holds its annual January publishers meeting down in Miami, Fla.
A Condé Nast spokeswoman confirmed the moves but declined further comment.
Survivors
Ben Sherwood, the executive producer of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which has been breathing down the neck of the “Today” Show on NBC, hopes to knock out an inspirational tome if he can find any spare time in the morning wars.
The book he wants to write is expected to be filled with survivors’ tales, including some from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and one of a pregnant woman in flooded Mozambique who climbed a tree to safety, gave birth in the tree and was amazed when a helicopter – a machine which she had never encountered before – came out of the sky to rescue her.
Publishing sources received the 20-page proposal earlier this week from his William Morris agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.
It has the working title, “The Survivors Club: The True Stories and Uncommon Wisdom of those who find God, Hope and Strength Against All Odds.”
A big part of the pitch is the follow-up, what happened to the survivors after the reporters left and the TV cameras switched off.
Sherwood is making his first stab at non-fiction, but two earlier novels hit the bestseller list, “The Man Who Ate the 747,” and “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud.”
Walsh says, “I expect a lively auction.”
And Sherwood insists he is sticking at GMA and only working on the manuscript when he wakes up in the middle of the night.
The Source (s, lcf)
Jeremy Miller, the new CEO of The Source, is digging in.
Yesterday he told us he fired 16 people on the payroll who apparently “never set foot in the office.”
Textron, which loaned the company $18 million, only to have The Source Entertainment default, claimed that the former Source heads, founder David Mays and muscle man and president Raymond “Benzino” Scott, were failing to deliver over 140,000 subscription copies each month – despite pocketing subscription money.
Aiken Hyung is apparently one of many disgruntled subscribers.
He called Media Ink to complain that he had paid “about $20” for a one-year subscription but hasn’t received a copy in nearly a year.
“I’m p****d,” Hyung said. “This is crazy. I’ve been calling them and calling them. They don’t return calls.”
New CEO Miller said he plans to start going through files, restoring subscriptions and eventually hopes to be reinstated with the Audit Bureau of Circulations.