Dumbest Media Move of the Year So Far?

Word came down earlier this week that after a months-long search, the board that controls the Forward, the prestigious and storied Jewish weekly in New York City, was preparing to offer the editorship to Jane Eisner, the former editorial page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Now, I don't know Jane Eisner, and I'm sure she's a fine candidate, but I do know the person who was passed over for the job, Alana Newhouse. So let me speak with some authority about what a mistake this is.

First, let's back up and say a bit about the Forward. The legendary Yiddish version of the newspaper was founded in 1897, but I am talking here about the weekly English-language version, begun in 1990 and edited for its first decade by Seth Lipsky, now editor of the New York Sun. Right from the start of Lipsky's editorship, the English Forward was an incubator of editorial talent: such important writers and editors as Jonathan Rosen, Rachel Donadio, and Philip Gourevitch worked for Lipsky near the beginnings of their careers. The editorship of J.J. Goldberg, the man being replaced by the new hire, has been in some ways less distinguished (and in some ways more); but the paper continues to feature superb writing, and it is influential out of proportion to its small (but growing) readership.

For the past five years, a big reason why the paper has been so great is Alana Newhouse, the arts editor. Now, full disclosure: Alana is a friend of mine, and I have written for her pages a good deal over the years. But I trust that many people who know Alana will know that I'm speaking honestly here, and with the Forward's best interests at heart. We assumed, with good reason, that Alana was the heir apparent. She has the Forward's left-of-center politics, but unlike most Jewish liberals, she actually knows Judaism: she was raised Orthodox, knows Hebrew, knows Torah. (With a couple exceptions, she's the only one in the offices there who does.) She also, for what it's worth--and it's worth a lot--knows news and current events (she used to work in politics), knows fashion, knows books, knows movies. And she writes for a wide ranges of publications--the New York Times Book Review, Slate--which is good for getting her little paper's name out.

Perhaps most important, Alana has managed the newspaper's transition to a new, award-winning website, and she is good on TV and radio (listen to her great insights about Portnoy's Complaint)--she understands how to work in different media. Not many editors do.

So, is she the first young (30) editor to be passed over for an older, more experienced editor? Of course not. It happens often, and in fact I think it should happen more often. I think too many magazines and newspapers promote young people quixotically, hoping that they will know how magically to attract younger readers. (Four years ago I myself was given a job I probably wasn't ready for, given it in part, I think, because I was young.) The New Republic, to take one example, would be a much better magazine if it had more editors who were beyond their twenties or thirties.

But in this case I have read the writing on the wall--a biblical allusion Alana would get; would Jane?--and don't like what I see. This strikes me less as a promotion of old over young than as strict news over polymathic news-and-culture; establishment credentials over new media skills; and the ever elusive "management skills" and "gravitas" over panache and enthusiasm. Except even that's not quite right, because Alana is a terrific manager; she has been acting as editor of the news section for the past year while J.J. Goldberg was on book leave, and during that time the news hole has been better, morale has (from what I can tell) been very high, and--best of all, one would think--subscription renewals are up.

So, I can't figure it out. But one thing is clear: the arts section that Alana edits has been generating most of the buzz for the paper for years now. That's not a slight toward the news writers--heck, if Leon Wieseltier left The New Republic, that magazine would take a huge hit in subscriptions--arts is big, and lot of people read the back of the book first, you know? Last time the paper got a new editor, after Lipsky's firing, several editors and writers left soon after, and the arts section took years to recover. If Newhouse leaves in anger, one of New York's most important sites for arts and culture criticism will have lost its captain. And it's hard to say who could steer it so well.