Rolling Stone, amid a variety of magazines responding to a troubled advertising environment by trimming staff, laid off two of its bigger names this month.
Eric Bates, the magazine’s executive editor who had worked there for nearly a decade, was laid off on Jan. 4. And Mark Neschis, who previously worked in the Clinton administration, reported for his last day on Jan. 11.
Mr. Neschis was handling press for Wenner Media, which owns Rolling Stone, along with Us Weekly and Men’s Health. He did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. But Mr. Bates looked back at his tenure at the magazine fondly. He helped edit Rolling Stone’s article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal and was involved with visiting the White House with the company’s founder, Jann Wenner, to interview President Obama.
“I’m going to be rooting for them and looking forward to whatever is next for me,†said Mr. Bates. “We were really modeling the way journalism can be done, even in a time of cutbacks and shoing that there’s a real hunger for long-form journalism.â€
Melissa Bruno, a spokeswoman for Wenner Media, declined to comment on the departures. But a December report issued by the rating agency Standard & Poor’s noted that Wenner Media had been assigned a negative rating when it tried to refinance a loan for the company.
The report called the company’s earnings profile “vulnerable†and said that the rating “reflects our expectation that leverage will remain high, given the structural pressures of declining newsstand and print advertising revenues facing the magazine publishing business.â€
The rating agency was not hopeful that cuts could make much of a difference for Wenner, saying that “cost reductions may not fully offset the company’s weak revenue trends.â€
