You may not know this, but Boston and Philly share a common scourge: They’ve both had dumb, glossy Metrocorp magazines bearing down on their respective cities as the last word in Stuff White People Like for years and years now. Both Boston and Philadelphia magazines are owned and operated by Metrocorp — run since the dawn of man by Herb Lipson and family — and both magazines, we can safely assume, don’t know where they’ll be in a few years, if in fact they’ll be in existence at all. Here in Philadelphia, PhillyMag has done a uniquely awful job transferring its once-great fortunes to the web, and we can only assume Boston is no different; and in any case, both magazines are subject to the current print-mag crunch, web or no web. Yesterday, Boston announced that it had laid off six people, including the mag’s editor. Since February, PhillyMag editor Larry Platt has been editorial director at Boston (while just-deposed editor James Burnett was still there), a curious situation that might speak more to the PhillyMag over-your-shoulder writing and editing style than it does to hard times, perhaps. In any case, six layoffs at once — plus a one-week unpaid furlough for current employees — is harsh, suggesting that the rot can’t be all that far away from PhillyMag. Here’s the part where we open a PayPal account so you can help us afford Steve Volk. No, seriously.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm.