Elle Kills Owen Wilson Q+A

With the news out of Hollywood concerning the socking apparent suicide attempt of A-list actor and partyboy Owen Wilson, the crass touting of “Exclusive!” news about Wilson and promotion of subject experts (Radar’s editors are available for comment!) — and the eschewing of his family’s pleas for privacy — were to be expected. (Us Weekly doesn’t exist in a sphere, after all.) What was unexpected, though, was Elle magazine’s rather classy decision to kill a Q+A with Wilson it had conducted weeks before the actor’s alleged binge-y overdose.

WWD reports that the piece slated for its December Hollywood issue was killed by editor Roberta Myers: “Obviously the circumstances have changed significantly,” she said.

Is Sports Illustrated Losing Potential Writers to ESPN?

Sports Illustrated recently hired a pair of senior writers with newspaper pedigrees – the New York Times’ Damon Hack and Jim Trotter of the San Diego Union Tribune – away from their respective papers. (Both were African-American, notes Journal-isms’ Richard Prince, tripling the total of black senior writers on staff.)

But SI group managing editor Terry McDonnel faces stiff talent recruitment from ESPN, where its multiplatform cache is too splashy to pass up. Take, for instance, the explanation given by columnist J.A. Adande, who McDonnel tried unsuccessfully to lure after Adande took a buyout from Los Angeles Times: “I wouldn’t say I ‘turned down’ Sports Illustrated because I’m not sure it ever came to a formal offer. Yes, Sports Illustrated Managing Editor Terry McDonnel called me when he found out I was leaving the Times. I was flattered that SI would think of me, and McDonnel had some intriguing ideas for what I could do for them. But I couldn’t continue to appear on ‘Around the Horn’ in that scenario.”

Playboy’s Editor: Magazine Still Relevant, Doesn’t Suck, Not Porn

So much to get to here, not sure quite where to begin. Chris Napolitano, Playboy’s editorial director — a Hefner lifer, if you will – via the New York Times‘ recently purchased Freakonomics blog:

“Tagging Playboy’s relevancy to its financial position is a sucker bet for an editor (mainly because we play by different rules). Still, if it’s my only cross to bear, I’ll take it. I work at a public company with sterling accounting ethics, and the magazine has spun off divisions that generate revenue that could arguably belong to the magazine’s bottom line at a private company. Then there’s the overworked word: pornography. Anyone who thinks the photos in Playboy are pornographic should relinquish their membership cards to the Met.”

The whole thing is a must-read. Check it out here …

‘The Internet is Dead and Boring, So Mark Cuban is Going to Take Up Ballroom Dancing’

Folio: superfriend Rex Hammock sums up the mild hysteria over outspoken Dallas Mavericks owner and Internet gagillionaire Mark Cuban’s controversial Portfolio piece on the medium through which he earned his gagillion quite nicely:

Billionaire blogger Mark Cuban used a hyperbolic subject line to discuss his belief that the Internet has reached a state of “utility,” and is no longer where creative breakthroughs can take place. He says more bandwidth is needed for the really cool stuff. And by cool stuff, I guess he means the High Def content he’s creating. Anyway, today, SI.com is reporting that Cuban is going to be a cast member of the next series of “Dancing with the Stars,” starting next month. He’s a great two-stepper, I hear.

New York’s Downtown Move Troubles: ‘We Will Get Through This Together’

New York magazine made the move from its Madison Avenue offices to 75 Varick Street in downtown Manhattan last week, and it appears even a serial Ellie-winner can have the moving pains typical of a smaller publisher.

The internal memo (via Gawker):

All:

Welcome to the new home of New York Media at 75 Varick St!

I know that we are looking forward to settling into our new workspace and getting back to work. We have had numerous challenges in the last several days which may affect many of you. PLEASE READ THIS!

Breaking: Jellinek Out at Maxim

In a move that had been rumored for months, Maxim editor Jimmy Jellinek, the so-called “First Lad” of magazine publishing, has been laid off. The company made the announcement late yesterday afternoon.

Former Maxim executive editor Jim Kaminsky replaces Jellinek, with the new title of editorial director. The firing comes less than two weeks after the $240 million sale of Dennis Publishing to Kent Brownridge, a former Wenner Media executive, was finalized, and the second major editorial layoff in as many weeks. (Last week, after Brownridge and his newly-formed Alpha Media Group decided to fold Maxim’s laddie underling Stuff into Maxim, the company cut ties with Stuff publisher John Lumpkin.

Kaminsky, a former editor of Men’s Journal, has close ties to Brownridge, having worked for him during Brownridge’s tenure at Wenner.

More background on Brownridge’s editorial moves here and here. More on the stuffing of Stuff here …

Jane Subscribers Getting Consolation Glamour Prize

In terms of appeasing subscribers of a shuttered magazine, this is sooo not Jane.

Via Page Six:

Former Jane magazine staffers are livid that Condé Nast is sending their one-time readers copies of Glamour now that Jane has bitten the dust. “I want all the Jane readers to just cancel, rather than get Glamour,” one ex-staffer griped. “I hope they call and say, ‘I don’t want this. Give me GQ, anything but this.’”

Former Jane subscribers were informed by Conde Nast, “We think you’ll love Glamour. Like Jane, it’s packed with everything smart, sexy women want to know. The page quotes scorned editor Brandon Holley’s followers balking “Glamour is not at all like Jane. It’s the exact opposite.”

Martha’s MySpace: ‘Risque! Hot!’

Martha Stewart – like 50 other magazine publishers, if an admittedly unscientific count by the Magazine Publishers of America is to be believed — has a MySpace page. WWD has the details: “It’s not enough for Martha Stewart to have a presence in print, television, the Internet, home building, home goods and, come next year, your local Costco via frozen dinners. She, like most publicity-hungry magazine editors, had to take hold of MySpace as well. The multiplatform domestic grande dame launched her official MySpace page at the end of July, including pictures of her pets and her old modeling photos — causing one ‘friend’ to comment ‘Wow! Risque! Hot!’”

But is it really her page? WWD reports about, but doesn’t provide a link to her page. A quick search of MySpace and Google turns up a slew of fake, predominantly anti-Martha MySpace pages — and this 2006 USA Today article chronicling celebrities and their faux MySpaces. Did WWD get PUNKED? 

ASME Cover of the Year Nominees Leaked

The nominees, much less winners, won’t be announced for a couple months, but a tipster tells us the American Society of Magazine Editors have a less-than-secure FTP site for submissions to their annual cover of the year contest. (Read: You — or anyone – can view what your competitors are submitting.)

The frontrunners, above, according to ASME’s American Magazine Conference blog …

Bet on It: Wicks to Sell Daily Racing Form for $200M

The Daily Racing Form—“America’s Turf Authority Since 1894” that was once sold by News Corp. to Primedia for $180 million, only to be sold by Primedia for $40 million seven years later—has been sold by the Wicks Group to Arlington Capital Partners for close to $200 million, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. Wicks bought the paper in 2004 for a reported $60 million.

Here’s some background:

The Form, something of a Bible for horse racing enthusiasts—and, of course, gamblers—was launched in 1894 by Frank Brunell as a four-page broadsheet and has seen a slew of owners in its 113-year-trip. For 66 years (1922-1988) it was owned by Walter Annenberg’s Triangle Publications before Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. bought Triangle. News Corp. sold the paper in 1991 for $180 million to then-KIII Communications for $180 million. Primedia invested $35 million to modernize and streamline the production of the paper, only to sell it to Alpine Capital and longtime racing journalist Steven Crist for $40 million in 1988.

The Form has what one might legitimately call a kickass Web site, choc-full of the kind of data only a fantasy baseball player could appreciate: breeder, trainer and jockey statistics (“Trainer Watch!”), purse indexes, track reports, live odds and, yes, a blog.