Is the New Yorker on S.I. Newhouse's DNR List?

Call­ing in those McK­in­sey folks to review your profit and loss num­bers in the mid­dle of the deep­est reces­sion since the 1930s is a lit­tle like hav­ing Dr. Kevorkian over to offer a sec­ond opinion.

“No, really, I’m feel­ing fine. Just a lit­tle touch of the flu.”

“Not at your age. You know, if you were a new pub­li­ca­tion, you might pull through. But Harold started you back in 1925. That’s a long, long haul for a weekly. But look on the bright side: it’s been a good run.”

When Si New­house decided that Gourmet was wear­ing a Do Not Resus­ci­tate bracelet this week, a great many peo­ple were stunned. My wife even called Condé Nast to leave a mes­sage for Mr. New­house, but the switch­board said there was no way to leave a mes­sage for the boss. Maybe that’s the way it is when you’re the emperor. You can begin to feel as if you don’t need to lis­ten to any­one, even your cus­tomers. And I guess that’s true.

That’s what both­ers me. In the equa­tion that McK­in­sey puts forth, if a mag­a­zine loses money for X period of time, no mat­ter how bru­tal the over­all busi­ness cli­mate, you kill it. It’s just a prod­uct that failed. The stake­hold­ers are the share­hold­ers of the cor­po­ra­tion, aren’t they?

I don’t think so. Enlight­ened busi­ness think­ing holds that the stake­hold­ers in a busi­ness actu­ally form a broader con­stituency. For one, the cus­tomers have a stake in the orga­ni­za­tion. You invited them, encour­aged them, brought them into a rela­tion­ship. The employ­ees are stake­hold­ers, too, plan­ning their lives and careers around the enter­prise. There is the com­mu­nity that sup­ported you, as well. That’s the food com­mu­nity, the New York pub­lish­ing com­mu­nity, and the mag­a­zine dis­tri­b­u­tion communit

We learn from Stephanie Clif­ford in the New York Times how Charles H. Townsend CEO of Condé Nast sees things. And just between us, if I was Eliz­a­beth Hughes or who­ever has P&L respon­si­bil­ity at the New Yorker, I would exam­ine these quotes care­fully, since some­one might be say­ing them about me before too long. And then I might take a few moments to make sure I could find the exits in an emer­gency. You can’t be too careful.

So, New Yorker, ask your­self, could this be you? “In the eco­nom­ics of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, this would be a busi­ness deci­sion bal­anced by the cul­tural ret­i­cence to part with iconic brands,” Charles H. Townsend, Condé Nast’s chief exec­u­tive, said in an inter­view. “This econ­omy is a com­pletely dif­fer­ent bag.” Feed­bag? Trash­bag? Body­bag? Just wondering.

Then there’s this thought from Suzanne M. Grimes, who over­sees Every Day With Rachael Ray, among other brands, for the Reader’s Digest Asso­ci­a­tion. (Ah, excuse me! EXCUSE ME! Didn’t Reader’s Digest go bank­rupt last month? This is The N.Y. Times’s expert on where Gourmet went wrong?)

“Cook­ing is get­ting more demo­c­ra­tic,” she said. “Food has become an emo­tional cur­rency, not an aspiration.”

Now if you’re at the New Yorker and not hid­ing under your desk, just play along with me here. It might strengthen you for the future. Just sub­sti­tute the word think­ing for cook­ing and you get this: “Think­ing is get­ting more demo­c­ra­tic,” some­one might be say­ing some­day. “Think­ing has become an emo­tional cur­rency, not an aspiration.”

So if you’re in the think­ing and not the cook­ing busi­ness, it could look bad for you, too.

Now try the same device with this far­ther down in the article:

It [food] has also become democ­ra­tized via the chatty ubiq­uity of Ms. Ray and the Food Net­work stars. Ms. Reichl is a celebrity in the food world, but of an elite type. She ‘is one of those icons in chief,’ said George Jan­son [adver­tis­ing guy] But what har­ried cooks want now, it seems, is less a dis­tant idol and more a pal.

So the New York Times obit for the New Yorker in a few months might read:

Think­ing has also become democ­ra­tized via the chatty ubiq­uity of Twit­ter and Face­book. Those New Yorker writ­ers like Mal­colm Glad­well were celebri­ties in the think­ing world, but of an elite type. Glad­well is one of those icons in chief. But what har­ried peo­ple want now, it seems, is a less dis­tant idol and more a pal.

Hey Mal­colm! How come you never call?

So if you ever have the chance to get Si New­house on the phone, or just hap­pen to run into him at a party or at the opera or some­thing, you might want to have a lit­tle chat about who you think are some of the stake­hold­ers in the New Yorker. Just cause a race­horse tripped doesn’t mean you have to put it down.