Will Editors Simply Become “Sifters?”

The Wall Street Journal has an eye-opening interview with Jack Kliger, president-CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. The chat focused on a couple of the print magazines that recently switched to web-only, including ELLEgirl and Premiere.

On the roll of editors in an online world:

“First of all, the editorial staffs [from print to web] are not the same size… Much of the Web content is produced through community vehicles like partnerships as well as forums and community conversations. The point is that on the Web, I believe that it’s more of a conversation than a one-way discussion… We feed the daily appetite more frequently than the monthly appetite, but we don’t give as big a portion each time because it’s being consumed much more quickly and it’s not a feature-length concept… Online, editors are not necessarily assigning as many pieces as much as they are sifting through material and figuring out what works best on our destinations…

On the difference of content from print to web for Premiere:

“…we are not talking about a feature magazine, the in-depth analysis of what’s going on behind the scenes in the movies that was a ten-page story in Premiere. It’s not going to be replicated on the Web, nor should it be [Hachette says the site will continue to offer fresh coverage of Hollywood news]…. What it is, is a compendium of movie information, rather than an in-depth product about the movies.

Leave a comment