Media Companies Feast on Holiday News Dump

It’s not easy working in media PR these days. Chances are, if you work in PR at a major media company, you’ve had to deal with layoffs. One editor writes in: can you please do a post on all these media company announcements coming right before the holiday break? The editor had a point. There has been a fair amount of bad news announced just before turkey day.

Time Inc. had layoffs across their magazine division and shuttered InStyle Weddings. An EVP also left the company to work on an “iTunes for magazines” project.

The Washington Post closed bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, although most of those affected will be offered jobs in D.C.

Playboy outsourced marketing, sales, and subscriptions to American Media Inc., which publishes titles the National Enquirer, Star magazine and Radar Online.

BusinessWeek.com editor-in-chief John Byrne announced he would be leaving the publication before it completes its integration into Bloomberg.

On the other hand, not all of the media news was bad.

The New York Times launched its first Blackberry app.

Our sister blog FishbowlDC, hired a new editor, former gossip columnist for The Hill, Betsy Rothstein.

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