Ex-Time Inc. employees furious at LinkedIn over Meredith logo

Former Time Inc. folks erupted in fury at LinkedIn in the days following the $2.8 billion takeover of the publisher by Meredith because the traditional blue Time Inc. logo was replaced on the social network with the atomized symbol for Meredith.

Even those who had worked for Time Inc. years before the Meredith takeover had the logo of the Des Moines-based company sit beside their mention of their Time Inc. experience.

“Dear LinkedIn, please give me my old Time Inc. logo back!” wrote Tammy Berentson, an associate dean of marketing at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies. “Meredith may have bought the company, but they did not buy my experience, my memories, our history. Fix it!”

Berentson left Time Inc. in April 2016 — nearly two years before the Meredith takeover.

Added Jose R. Perez, who worked at Time from 2008 to 2011, “Wiped from history like a bad Civil War memorial or a Holocaust denier! Not acceptable to erase the experience of thousands of professionals who literally built Time Inc. into the world’s greatest publisher.”

A Meredith spokesman insisted it was not of their doing. “This is a LinkedIn thing — we can’t do anything about it.”

But many former Time Inc. staffers remain skeptical.

Rodale and Wenner Media, two companies that were also sold, still have their own corporate logos in place on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn in had not responded for comment by press time.