In the wake of Troy Young’s defenestration after two years as president of Hearst Magazines, where a New York Times investigation found that he fostered a “toxic” workplace environment, and had been making wildly inappropriate sexual remarks to employees, the division is awash in questions about its future—and how it ended up in this crisis in the first place.
For starters, there’s the matter of who will ultimately be crowned as Young’s successor, overseeing a portfolio that includes such premium brands as Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country, and numerous others. One name you can cross off the list right away is Young’s predecessor, David Carey, who returned to the company in January (after a yearlong fellowship at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative), in the position of senior vice president of public affairs and communications. Carey is a magazine heavyweight who was highly respected during his eight years running the division, known for gestures like sending every employee a handwritten note on their birthday. A Hearst insider told me, “There’s some degree of wishful thinking that David Carey will swoop in and rescue everyone from this morass.”
But sources said a big part of what lured Carey back to the company was the promise of getting to work on philanthropic initiatives via the Hearst Foundation. In recent days, he has assured inquisitive colleagues that he is happily focused on his new role. (He also gave away most of his expensive Gucci suits after stepping down as president in 2018, confident that he wouldn’t again require the wardrobe of a high-flying company president.) As one of my sources put it, “I think David is pretty happy on the 27th floor looking over far less messy concerns.” (Carey was away on vacation this week and therefore unavailable for a chat. This is also a good place to mention that Carey previously served as group president at Vanity Fair’s parent company, Condé Nast, which competes directly with Hearst.)
In the interim, at least, Debi Chirichella, previously the magazine division’s chief financial officer, has been named acting president. Given her background in financial planning as opposed to sales or content, some editorial employees were left with the impression that “she’s very much temporary,” as one of them put it. But others familiar with the inner workings of the company sounded more confident that she may eventually shed the “acting” part of the title. One source told me that those on the business and operations side, in particular, are “thrilled” to see her in the role. Another pointed out that her number-crunching background is precisely what is needed right now, because the magazine division, faced with the same revenue troubles as the rest of the industry, “is a financial puzzle at this point. Debbie will probably get ratified into the job.” (Someone familiar with the plans told me there’s “no timetable to start any formal search for the role.”)
In an email to employees this week, Chirichella said she was determined to “lead the change that must occur and to help rebuild trust within our organization.” She addressed the allegations about Young that surfaced in the Times piece. (Sample: In the Hearst cafeteria, he reportedly approached a heavily pregnant employee and said, “So, is the baby mine?”) And she offered assurances “that no one in leadership, including myself or anyone at the corporate level, knew about these grotesque allegations.”
There’s a lot of skepticism regarding that claim, given how widespread the hand-wringing about Young was within the organization. (The company maintains that the only complaints it officially received had to do with Young’s management style, not his gross remarks.) Moreover, despite being well-liked and generally seen as a smart and competent manager, Chirichella probably didn’t score any points among the journalistic ranks for the part of her note that touched on the Bryan Singer fiasco, in which a 2018 Esquire investigation into sexual-misconduct allegations against the director was controversially killed by the brass, only to be published to much acclaim by The Atlantic. “Hearst has a long history of doing investigative journalism,” Chirichella wrote. “We never shy away from reporting important stories of the day. I remain committed to that. However, we will not publish material that is unfair and unsubstantiated.” The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, took a sledgehammer to that assessment. “Just appalling,” he tweeted. “After Hearst executives spiked the Singer investigation, @TheAtlantic took it on — edited it, fact-checked it again, and published. Not a single fact in the piece has ever been challenged.”