David Carey, the former president of Hearst Magazines, is returning to the fold a year after his departure — raising questions about the future of successor Troy Young.
Carey is taking a full-time role as senior vice president of public affairs and communications for the parent company — a very different role from the one he held running mags like Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar.
Nonetheless, many see his arrival as a move to calm the waters in the magazine division, which has been troubled since two top former executives of Say Media took over: Young as president, succeeding Carey, and Kate Lewis as chief content officer.
“I think [Carey] is a quality executive and Hearst has some things that aren’t going so well,” said one industry executive. “If I was Troy Young, I’d be looking over my shoulder a little bit.”
Carey, who was magazine president from 2010 to 2018, spent the past year living in Boston as a fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Hearst CEO Steve Swartz said his new role is to “lead efforts to enhance our contribution to our communities through our core business mission, through philanthropy and through our participation in key civic groups.”
But his arrival comes as the magazine division faces workers’ dissent, which is reflected in a recent move by staffers to unionize. Some insiders complained that Young and Lewis have little experience on the creative and editorial side and resent that they have been bringing in digital people to run the show.
“Say Media was a total fiasco,” said one insider, noting that its content sites including xoJane, Remodelista, Dogster and Catster and others that were sold off, leaving the company to serve only as a tech vendor to other publishers.
Hearst magazines has also seen a high level of turnover, most recently Anne Fulenwider exiting Marie Claire after seven years to launch an undefined venture in the women’s health field. Former chief content officer Joanna Coles resigned within a week of Young’s appointment last year. And virtually the entire upper echelon has been replaced at Esquire in the aftermath of Young and Lewis killing an exposé on Hollywood director Bryan Singer’s alleged history of sexual abuse with underage boys.
The squashed article about Singer, who denies its claims, ended up running in The Atlantic. Jay Fielden, the Esquire editor who pushed for it to be published, said in late May he would exit when his contract expired at the end of June. He was replaced by Michael Sebastian, who was running Esquire.com.
More recently, the Writers Guild of America, East revealed that the “vast majority” of Hearst’s 500 editorial staffers said they wanted to join the union.
New York magazine’s website reported Thursday that the company was apparently on the brink of launching a social media campaign against the union on Twitter and Instagram under the @hearstundivided handle. The report said that the sites have since been deleted but, when they were active, they linked to an anti-union Web site that Young had unveiled on Dec. 2.
More recently, the @hearstundivided handle has been usurped by the union, which is using it in its own campaign.
Said one Hearst veteran who is not in the union, “Frankly, those of us in the middle think the kids who are leading the union charge may be getting a little ahead of themselves. But if that results in blowing out Troy, we are all for it.
“Normally the middle management — mostly veterans and print pros — would be the ones to talk the younger staff back from the ledge,” this person said. “But we took the brunt of the abuse when Troy and Kate took over and immediately treated the print people with open contempt. So if the young’uns want to storm the Bastille, fine by us.”
As young men, Carey and Swartz played key roles when Dow Jones and Hearst launched SmartMoney in 1992. Swartz was a top editor and Carey publisher.
