New York Magazine Pulls Features Writer From New York Times
New York Magazine will soon have a new voice on fashion in its pages and online.
Matthew Schneier is joining as New York’s new features writer, set to contribute to fashion vertical The Cut and related stories for the print magazine. He is coming from The New York Times, where he was a staff writer on the paper’s Styles desk. Prior to that he worked at Style.com when it was owned by Fairchild Fashion Media, then part of Conde Nast.
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Even though Schneir has spent most of his career at either newspapers or writing for a web site, New York editor in chief David Haskell said in a memo that Schneier’s writing voice is one “made for magazines.”
“Ours in particular — he’s a lifelong New Yorker who sees the world in New York stories,” Haskell added.
Stella Bugbee, president and editor in chief of The Cut, said she’s been following Schneier’s work for some time and that “he has a great sense of humor and a deep knowledge of the way the industry works.”
This is a new role for New York and Schneier isn’t displacing anyone, a spokeswoman said. “While his focus will be on longer form pieces for The Cut, he will also contribute some shorter items more frequently, but will not be doing any of the daily blogging that counts for most of the vertical’s content output.”
The addition of a features writer for The Cut is just the latest change to the masthead under Haskell, who earlier this year succeeded Adam Moss after his lauded 15 years as editor in chief. Since March, when Haskell officially took over, he’s made a handful of promotions and additions and more are likely on the way.
But New York has recently lost staff, too. Longtime lead print editor Jared Hohlt, with the magazine for 18 years, left shortly after Haskell was promoted, apparently passed over for the job. And New York went through a round of layoffs just after Moss’ official last day at the start of March, cutting about 5 percent of its full-time staff and a number of part-time positions and contracted contributors. Among the laid-off staff, a majority were part of a recently formed unionized bargaining unit under NewsGuild.
The layoffs also coincided with reports that the company’s chief executive officer Pam Wasserstein had taken New York off the market after about a year of shopping it around for a sale or an equity investment. The company is said to be losing around $12 million a year. When Haskell was named editor in chief, Wasserstein lauded his work in establishing “new business ventures,” the expanding verticals, branded collaborations and deals for book, TV and film.
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