NEW YORK — Out goes Caroline Miller, in comes Adam Moss.
New York magazine’s new owner, Bruce Wasserstein, began his promised changes in earnest Wednesday, replacing Miller, who has been editor since 1996, with Moss, the highly regarded cultural czar of The New York Times.
After paying $55 million for the magazine in December, Wasserstein and New York Media Holdings chief executive officer Anup Bagaria began a 90-day review to determine the title’s direction, growth opportunities and staffing needs. But they and Miller had recently given signs that her job was safe — just two weeks ago she made the major hire of a new fashion director and she had given numerous interviews about upcoming changes she expected to implement.
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But, “when an Adam Moss comes along, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Bagaria. As for other personnel changes, Bagaria said they’ll be Moss’ decision. Moss, in turn, said he had not thought seriously about the staff.
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“We had no preconceived ideas about Caroline leaving,” said Bagaria, explaining why Miller had been allowed to hire several people before her departure. “Over the past week, things with Adam got further and further along.” From initial overtures to an agreement Tuesday night, the process of hiring Moss took about a week, Bagaria said.
More shocking than Miller’s departure from New York is Moss’ from the Times. Fifteen years ago, as editor of 7 Days, he was seen as a future successor to Tina Brown as the magazine world’s monarch of buzz. Moss started at the Times in 1979, jumped to Rolling Stone, where he moved up the ranks before shifting to Esquire and ascending to the deputy editor post. In 1988, Moss helped launch 7 Days. While that magazine lasted only two years, Moss wrested some of the limelight away from a then-much stronger New York magazine. A year after 7 Days closed in 1990, Moss joined the Times as a consultant, eventually assuming the editorial director, then editor in chief title at the Times Magazine. Throughout the Nineties, his name appeared in media columns whenever a plum job opened up somewhere, but he never gave any signs he wanted to leave.
Then came Jayson Blair. Suddenly Howell Raines was out as executive editor, and Bill Keller — who wrote for Moss during the Raines interregnum — was in. Needing a deputy to gently overhaul the paper’s cultural coverage, Keller tapped Moss as an assistant managing editor — a promotion to be sure, but one which took Moss off day-to-day work at the magazine and moved him into a nebulous role involving more human resources and consulting work than actual editing. On the day of his appointment, sources at the Times said, Moss looked stricken about the move. Ironically, Keller’s effort to make the most of Moss’ many talents likely laid the groundwork for his departure.
Moss was diplomatic about it Wednesday. “I love working at the Times,” he said. “I really believe in Bill Keller and this regime. And I did not make this choice easily. But in the end, I’m a magazine guy, and the opportunity to lead New York magazine into the future was just too wonderful an opportunity to pass up. There’s no question that I missed magazines and I missed getting my hands dirty.”
Moss’ departure creates a murky situation at the Times, leaving behind a job created expressly for him and a new Style editor, Stefano Tonchi, he hired only four months ago. He had also just completed drafting a master plan for the newspaper sections under his direction, which ranged from Sunday Styles to Real Estate, sources said.
For now, the job of cultural czar will stay open, if it will even continue to exist at all, said a Times spokeswoman. “We’ll reevaluate how we’ll proceed,” she said.
“I’m disappointed,” said Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn. “In the short time that he’s been in this job, he’s really made a difference in the fashion coverage. He’s made it more focused, more thoughtful and more relevant. What I like about Adam is not only does he know what he wants, but he tells you what he wants. That’s a great quality in an editor. In the fashion pages that is a wonderful ingredient, and a catalyst to make things happen.”
Back at New York, Miller will finish the next two issue before Moss takes over around March 1. His last day at the Times, however, is Friday, so “I’ll be reading up on it until then,” he said.
A lot has changed since the days of 7 Days. Back then, he only had New York magazine to worry about; now he’ll be battling everything from Time Out New York to Citysearch to Vanity Fair. “I certainly don’t see New York magazine’s future as a service package,” he said. (In the magazine’s final months under Miller at the previous owner, Primedia, the magazine had revolved around service.) “I see service and utility as a big part of it, but I also see it as a big conversation starter. I intend to take the bones of what New York magazine has been all of its life, and figure out a way to make them relevant again. We’ll be rethinking everything. This is really a chance to reinvent the city magazine as a genre.”