New York Observer Hits Reset Again, Names Ken Kurson New Editor

It will come as something short of a surprise to those who follow the Manhattan media scene that The New York Observer has picked a new editor. After all, the newspaper has already had five editors in the seven years since Jared Kushner, a New York real estate developer, acquired the newspaper at the age of 25 in 2006. But the person who will fill those well-worn shoes? There's a bit of surprise in that choice.

Ken Kurson, who was named editor in chief of The New York Observer and editorial director of the Observer Media Group on Friday morning, has many of the familiar literary qualifications one might expect. He's been a contributing editor at Esquire magazine since 1997 and has written a column the re. He interned at Harper's magazine, started and sold a personal finance magazine, and has written four books.

Still, one of those books was “Leadership,” which he co-authored with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and one-time presidential hopeful. Mr. Kurson has had a long and close association with Mr. Giuliani, having worked at Giuliani Partners in 2002 after completing the book and then joining his campaign for president in 2008. That campaign ended far short of the nomination, and since then Mr. Kurson has worked at Jamestown Associates, a New Jersey political and communications firm, where he ran media operations for a number of Republican House and Senate candidates.

At The Observer, Mr. Kurson takes over from Aaron Gell, who has served as interim editor since Elizabeth Spiers resigned last August. (It was not immediately known whether Mr. Gell would stay on.) Mr. Kurson is a long-time friend of Mr. Kushner's and his father, Charles, the real estate developer with significant holdings in New Jersey.

Mr. Kurson said he has watched with acute interest as the younger Mr. Kushner searched for a durable business model for the storied salmon-colored weekly and its various Web sites, including Observer.com; Betabeat, focused on the New York technology scene; Very Short List, a listing of cultural offerings; and its Politicker sites in New York and New Jersey. (The company also owns a number of other niche real estate publications.)

As Mr. Kushner has churned through editors and financial losses, he has struggled to find a landing place for The New York Observer, which faces increased competition from a revitalized New York Magazine and an y number of Web sites that are staffed by young writers cracking wise and sometimes wisely about current events in New York.

“I took a company that was losing a lot of money and run as a hobby and turned it into a business,” Mr. Kushner said in a phone interview. “If you take a conventional approach in the media business, you are going to get slaughtered. It's true that I've broken some eggs along the way, but in the process I've preserved an important editorial voice, not just in New York but in the rest of the country.”

Mr. Kurson, 44, said in an interview that the timing was right for the move. “We had talked over the years about a role at the newspaper, and the timing seemed good,” he said, alluding to Mr. Kushner. “I am just coming out of an election cycle, and the city is headed into what will probably be the most interesting, complicated mayoral race since 1993.”

Given his close ties to Mr. Giuliani and the former mayor's keen interest in advancing the candidacy of Joseph J. Lhota, the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, some eyebrows are likely to be raised.

“People will think what they want,” he said. “I will have to earn their trust. I have had a long and honorable journalistic career, calling it like I see it and being a straight shooter.”

His appointment is another step in a remarkable evolution for the weekly newspaper, which was the center of a certain kind of upper Manhattan liberalism for many years. Now it is owned by a major real estate developer, who is married to Ivanka Trump no less, and will be led by a former Republican operative, albeit someone who has significant editorial credentials.

In a letter to The Observer staff, which was notified on Friday morning of Mr. Kurson's hiring, Mr. Kushner said: “Ken knows the ideas, stories a nd voices that make up New York better than anyone. He is a journalist and an author and through his years as a consultant observed the figures who create the framework of business, politics, media, tech, culture and real estate in our city.”

Mr. Kurson, who continued to write on and off for Esquire while he was working as a political consultant, has always been a little tough to pigeonhole. He created greenmagazine.com, a personal finance site, and Green magazine, both of which were acquired by Bankrate in 1999, but he also was the bass player in Green, a relatively successful indie rock band in Chicago, and performed with two other well-reviewed bands, Circles and the Lilacs.

While he will edit a newspaper and Web site that is of and about New York, he lives with his family in South Orange, N.J. And while many people sought to distance themselves from Charles Kushner after he pleaded guilty in 2005 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making i llegal campaign donations and was sentenced to two years in prison, Mr. Kurson continued to remain a friend of both father and son.

“I've done a lot of different things, and I think my strongest suit is curiosity and an ability to project an enthusiasm about the stuff that I am interested in,” he said. “I've worked in media, I've worked in politics, and now I'm back in media full time. The Venn diagram intersect of all of those things is to working to engage and interest people.”