Will buzz follow Maer Roshan now that he’s back to work full time?
Once among the hottest editors in the Big Apple, the Radar magazine founder, 51, was named Tuesday as editor-in-chief of Los Angeles magazine and lamag.com.
“This is an incredible moment to be editing a magazine venture here. LA is the new capital of America,” said Roshan. “Over the past decade, the momentum and energy and creativity in this country has boldly swung West.”
Roshan decamped for the Golden West five years ago but kept a low profile. In between the beach and working out, he freelanced for tech companies, pursued TV projects and did guest-editing gigs, including one for The Hollywood Reporter’s Oscar issue.
In 2016, he became chief content officer of gay-focused website and quarterly FourTwoNine (which spells G-A-Y on a phone keypad).
LA magazine is the third major regional title to switch editors in recent weeks. Last week, the legendary editor of New York Magazine, Adam Moss, said he was stepping down from the 51-year-old title in March and will be replaced by insider David Haskell.
Two weeks earlier, Texas Monthly, now owned by Genesis Park LP, tapped Dan Goodgame, a past editor of Fortune Small Business, to succeed interim editor Rich Oppel at the helm of the 47-year-old magazine. Goodgame had most recently been working at Rackspace.
Roshan was hired at New York Magazine under Kurt Andersen in 1994, and stayed until he was hired by Tina Brown to be editorial director at Talk — until its spectacular crash in early 2002 in the wake of 9/11.
Then, with dogged determination and an uncanny ability to generate headlines, Roshan launched three iterations of his own magazine, Radar. One of his backers, billionaire investor Ron Burkle, eventually sold it to American Media Inc., where it survives as the digital-only Radaronline.com. (Another early backer, Jeffrey Epstein, would eventually go to jail for sex abuse crimes against underage females. Shortly before the charges became public, fellow Radar backer Mort Zuckerman pulled the plug.)
Another famous Roshan achievement was having one of his peeps toss a pie in the face of Gawker founder Nick Denton at one of Radar’s relaunch parties.
Roshan has battled substance-abuse problems, which spurred him to launch a website on addiction and recovery called The Fix in 2013.
LA magazine is owned by Detroit-based Hour Media, which picked up the 56-year-old title and three other magazines from Emmis for $6.5 million in March 2017. At that time, veteran editor-in-chief Mary Melton was replaced by Matt Segal — who is out with Roshan’s arrival.
“After a half-dozen launches, I didn’t think I’d end up editing another magazine, but the opportunity to run this one proved difficult to resist,” Roshan said. “Editing magazines these days is like being on a rollercoaster. You get on and have a wild ride and scream a lot. Then you get off and do it again.”
