At Fortune, three of the four remaining assistant managing editors have been pink-slipped. John Brodie, Brian Dumaine and Eric Gelman are all departing, leaving only Stephanie Mehta, who, according to one insider, is seen as the likely eventual successor to Managing Editor Andy Serwer. A fourth assistant managing editor, Lee Clifford, volunteered for a severance package last week, as did executive editor Steve Koepp.
All told, about 15 people were let go from the editorial side, according to the New York Post, with another 10 to 15 accepting buyouts.
Fortune isn't the only title shedding staff today; Mediaite reports that "a number of titles at Time Inc." are conducting editorial layoffs today, following the business-side cuts of two weeks ago. But Time, People and Entertainment Weekly don't seem to be among them. It's unclear whether they managed to achieve their cost-reduction targets through voluntary measures or whether they're merely holding off their purges until after Thanksgiving.
It makes sense that the cuts would go especially deep at Fortune since the magazine plans to publish fewer issues next year -- 18 versus 25. Its rivals in the business category have recently endured even more radical pruning: Forbes eliminated roughly 100 positions last month, while BusinessWeek's new owner, Bloomberg LP, elected to downsize its staff by one-third, resulting in 130 layoffs.
Time Inc. and DailyFinance parent AOL are both part of Time Warner, although AOL will be spun off next month as an independent entity.
