Rolling Stone has laid off Eric Bates, its executive editor and a member of its staff since 2003. Before his time at RS, Bates held top editorial sports at Mother Jones and Southern Exposure. 

“I’m going to be rooting for them [RS] and looking forward to whatever is next for me,” Bates told the New York Times.

In related news, Mark Neschis, corporate communications director for RS’ parent, Wenner Media, has been let go as well. Neschis had been with the company since 2005.

Wenner Media is attempting to refinance about $200 million in debt, but — according to The New York Post — things aren’t going smoothly. The debt has been around since 2006, when the company bought out Walt Disney’s share of the joint venture that had owned Us Weekly.

Most of the loan is due by next October, so Wenner Media still has time, but Standard & Poor doesn’t think it will be easy. S&P gave the debt a “B” rating just a few days ago, and stated that the “outlook is negative, reflecting our view that leverage will remain elevated as a result of unfavorable secular industry trends.”

For what it’s worth, Wenner Media feels confident that everything will work out. “The company’s refinancing process is going very smoothly, and we anticipate that it will be completed in a timely manner,” a spokesperson told the Post.

Yahoo! and Wenner Media are teaming up to create new content as part of a new cross-branding deal. Under the agreement, Yahoo!’s omg! and Yahoo! Music will share content and maintain a brand presence with Us Weekly, Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal; and vice versa.

The reason for the deal is simple: To extend all of the brands’ reach.

“This partnership combines boutique-quality entertainment content with unmatched scale,” said David Kang, Wenner Media’s chief digital officer, in a statement. “Rolling Stone and Us Weekly are iconic brands in music and celebrity news. As a leader in digital media, Yahoo! is the perfect partner to help these brands grow their digital footprint.”

Wenner Media has quit the MPA, magazines’ trade association, for the second time. The publishing house first left the MPA in 1990, pledging only to rejoin if the organization dedicated itself to a revitalization, reports Ad Age. In 2010 Wenner came back, but that stay is over now.

Wenner Media hasn’t offered a reason for its second departure, but it does coincide with the “Power of Print” ad campaign — which was spearheaded by Wenner — ending.

David Kang has been named Chief Digital Officer of Wenner Media. He comes to the company from Hearst Magazines, where he most recently worked as Creative Director of Content Extensions. At Wenner Kang will be responsible for all paid content, ad sales, social media and e-commerce for Wenner’s brands, across all digital platforms.

“David’s deep experience and expertise in digital will be an asset to Wenner Media,” said John Gruber, the company’s Chief Operating Officer. “We look forward to working with David as he develops new ways to connect and engage our audience and further increase our brands’ multiplatform reach.”

Kang’s first day will be January 20.

We mentioned the rumors circling Condé Nast, so here is some good news for the company: It posted the biggest overall ad page gain for the first half among the major publishing houses.

According to min, Condé posted a 280 page gain during the first six months compared to last year, easily beating out second place Bonnier Corporation. Here are the top five:

1. Condé Nast – 280 ad page gain
2. Bonnier Corp. – 227
3. Wenner Media – 225
4. Source Interlink – 197
5. Time Inc. – 172

The news for all of the 22 surveyed publishing companies was sobering however, as 12 posted gains and 10 had losses. Speaking of losses, notice any big company missing from the top five? That’s right — Hearst isn’t listed. The company hasn’t done well at all so far. Even with the addition of the Hachette titles, Hearst barely posted a gain. Without the acquisition, the company would’ve been in the red.

If you’ve recently opened a current issue of your favorite magazine you may have noticed that publishers have taken off the gloves in an effort to prove that print is still viable.  NYT.com’s Jeremy W. Peters reports that magazines have adopted a more aggressive approach in their defense of the print medium with an ad campaign that attacks the merits of the Internet.  In a two-page layout headlined by the statement “This is not the Internet.  Feel free to curl up and settle in,” the pro-print ad shows a woman laying on a hammock on a beach and emphasizes the simple nature of magazines compared to distraction-heavy digital content.

Although many of the magazines carrying the ad have digital counterparts, the ad’s chief creator and president of marketing for Hearst Magazines Michael A. Clinton believes that people must remember that print still carries its weight in the industry:

Magazines didn’t have a consumer problem; they had an advertising problem.  We have to be delivering our content in different ways, but in a continually digitized world, the interesting thing is the passion people still have for the print product.

Although the anti-Internet element surfaced only recently, the overall campaign began in March.  The ads are designed by Y&R New York and have appeared in Hearst, Time Inc., Condé Nast, Meredith, and Wenner Media titles.

Condé Nast, Hearst Corp., Meredith Corp., Time Inc. and Wenner Media are working together to fund and launch a magazine marketing campaign starting next month, Mediaweek reports.

More details about the campaign, which will promote the magazine medium, will be introduced next month, with the publishers featuring ads in their titles starting in April.

Meredith’s Jack Griffin told Mediaweek:

“The message is this: Industry leaders are joining forces to solve problems. I think it’s an opportunity to speak up at a time when the media landscape has gotten very confusing, and I think the campaign asserts the intrinsic value of the magazine medium.”

This agreement is different from the magazine consortium between four of those publishers and News Corp., Next Issue Media, which have combined forces to launch some sort of digital e-reader format.

Read more: Magazine Marketing Pact to Roll Out in April

Previously: New Publisher Consortium Gets A Name

Keith Blanchard (left) has worn many hats during his career, most recently founding The Daily Lowdown, a content aggregation site for young men. But the Huffington Post columnist and former editor-in-chief of lad mag Maxim is now making the leap to advertising.

On Monday, Blanchard will start his new job as North American executive creative director at Story Worldwide, which bills itself as “the only advertising agency with a full editorial department.” Seemingly, Blanchard will be putting his experience as a journalist, author and former online editorial director at Wenner Media to use as he oversees “the development of all brand storytelling initiatives” at Story, which boasts clients such as Unilever, Lexus and Agent Provocateur.

In a press release, Blanchard said he doesn’t “believe traditional ‘adjacency’ ads will ever come back, now that advertisers have real options and can control their own destiny.”

“The future, the cutting edge of storytelling innovation is directly sponsored content, and Story Worldwide does it better than anybody on Earth,” he added. “That’s where I want to be.”

Cleverly-titled release after the jump

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