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In Reply to: RE: I, too, wondered if there was "more to the story". posted by mwhitmore on February 15, 2015 at 11:13:37
As JA accurately noted, I resigned. I may or may not have retired.
I no longer want to write for Stereophile.
Stereophile is owned by TEN: The Enthusiast Network, the rebranded remnant of now-defunct Source Interlink. TEN is said to be largely owned by Golden Tree Asset Management, a hedge fund.
You can Google TEN and Source Interlink. You can also Google Source Interlink and Bonita Springs, Florida ... and Time-Warner.
Would you want to work for these people?
Follow Ups:
I, as well as the majority of people interested in hi-fi I would go out on a limb to say, feel that you have a lot to offer.
I wish you the best and am still puzzled at anyone asking you if you want to be paid for your work.
I always told my kids and wife that the main issue in doing work for anyone is that the cheques don't bounce. A delay in payment is usually a precursor of trouble of the rubber kind.
Professionals like Sam want to be paid for their work, and promptly.
Can anyone blame them? Trouble is, there are plenty of wannabees who are more than willing to review equipment free, just so they can call themselves "Reviewers".
When payroll isn't being paid regularly and on time you know damned well that trouble is brewing. Remember that old cliché - "Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul". Pay the suppliers first one month then cover the payroll checks the next! Anything to keep the doors open, but that can't last indefinitely.
About twenty years ago I worked for a corporation whose payroll checks had become so unreliable that the employees would grab their checks and haul ass to the bank that they were drawn on to cash them the instant those checks got into their hands. The people who were slow to do that wound up with bounced checks that week. I didn't stick around, but those who did arrived at work one day (about two months later) only to find chains securing all of the doors with Federal Marshal's notices proclaiming that the business was seized for non payment of their quarterly employment taxes.
Most of us know that print publishing is probably on its last legs. Only those at the very top of their game will survive. I don't think that todays Stereophile can make the cut. I gave it a maximum of five years under the present regime on a post that I made a couple of months ago. I've just revised my prediction down to two years tops.
Bye Stereophile, it was great at the beginning. No so great during the recent past.
Cheers,
Al
> When payroll isn't being paid regularly and on time you know damned well
> that trouble is brewing.
For the record, payroll has been paid regularly and on-time for all
full-time staff at Stereophile. I request you not to repeat baseless
rumors like this.
As Sam Tellig correctly wrote, contractor payments were late for the
November 2014 issue but those for the December issue were actually early.
There were then issues with contractor payments for the January and
February 2015 issues that affected some contractors but not others. These
problems were connected with the transfer of the company's accounts
payables activities from an internal department to an outsource company.
As of 10 days ago, all Stereophile's contractors are up to date with
their payments through the March 2015 issue.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Hey Atkinson, a little defensive huh? That was a general statement that I made and I related it directly to personal experience with a former employer.
How full of s**t can you be, you ass-licking turd? You show me exactly where I "repeat(ed) baseless rumors like this" and I'll retract them. But you can't, can you? To begin with, judging from other posts in this thread they're not just rumors nor are they baseless, are they? I didn't post my comments in this thread to directly address you and your magazine only, but since you seem to think that I did perhaps I'll tell you how I feel:
You've taken what was once a very interesting niche magazine and destroyed it in your sleazy efforts to increase readership with no regard to content. You're nothing but a (supposedly) smooth talking corporate shill. I wonder how you can look at yourself in the mirror before you go into work.
Get off your high horse and get out of the ether. Anytime a business is late paying bills or payroll it's either suffering from a lack of operating capital or just doesn't have any regard for its employees and/or its suppliers. Face it, your days are numbered.
Well Atkinson, what else can I say except F**k you.
Al
> > Well Atkinson, what else can I say except F**k you.
You could say you screwed yourself. See you in a few weeks. Maybe.
Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum, et cetera, et cetera...
Memo bis punitor delicatum! It's all there, black and white,
clear as crystal! Blah, blah, and so on and so forth ...
This is an editor's responsibility.
How many times did I have to remind you?
Plenty of places to publish articles and reviews around...
But if you also want to get PAID.. Well???
"I cannot deal with late copy."
JA in an e mail to me last October 6. I was asking for a few more days to complete my February column.
The day after he e mailed writers that checks would be -- er, somewhat late. Yet again.
That's when I exploded. JA cannot "deal with" late copy and I cannot deal with late payments.
Ironically, I was paid up in full at the time, having skilled that mont and was not affected by that particular stalling memo, the latest of many. I decided to leave it that way.
I told JA that I found it humiliating to plead for payment after 32 years with Stereophile.
But I sat on this for a while to see if things might reverse themselves ....
ST,
I wish you good luck where every you land and I'm sure "late" was the trigger , obviously not the main issue. JA is also in a pickle "late" has to be answered (bothways) and sometimes the shoulders dont sit square from the load.
If JA goes , I'm stuck with Harley , dread the thought :)
Regards
That is surprising. I would have figured you guys were salaried. If you are salaried, then I believe there are federal guidelines requiring timely paychecks.
I'm pretty sure that FLSA does not cover that. And even if there are laws covering timely payroll, I'm sure that the Congress is in the process of dismantling them due to the unreasonable burden that they impose on US businesses.
I presume the salaried writers were paid on time.
Don't see TEN in a listing of what Golden Tree owns, and it seems they got rid of their position in Time Warner.
That was the only reason you quit S'phile?
> Don't see TEN in a listing of what Golden Tree owns...
Golden Tree bought a majority stake in Source Interlink in the fall of 2013.
They split the company into two: Source Interlink Media, which publishes
magazines; and Source Interlink Distribution, which distributes magazines.
SID was shuttered last summer; SIM was renamed The Enthusiast Network
or TEN.
Through all the corporate changes since Larry Archibald and I sold
Stereophile Inc. to Petersen Publishing in June 1998, I have kept
Stereophile true to its ethos as formulated by J. Gordon Holt. I won't
pretend that doing so has always been easy, but the longer I sit in the
editor's chair - 29 years on May 1 - the more gravitas I can pretend to
have. :-)
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2.
Dear Sam,
WP
Alluded to something amiss in the partial email JA posted in piece. I'm glad you're taking a stand against something that you find wrong.
I Hope to see your writing somewhere. I miss it greatly. For nearly twenty years I've looked
Forward to your column and it's a great loss to not have it anymore.
I thank you for the joy your writing brought me all these years.
Best wishes,
Ian
While I had no direct objection to Larry Archibald selling out to Peteresen (I thought Guns and Ammo and Teen to be well-edited niche publications, even though I had no desire to own a gun or a teenage girl*), it left Stereophile to be bought and sold in an indiffeent marketplace to whomever, even unto Rupert Murdoch, horns, cloven hooves and all. )para) I hope you will keep me/us aware if you decidr to continue writing. (footnote) *If forced to choose, I would select a gun. They are quieter!
...so, unless you are totally independent (almost impossible) - there is no liberation!
Good Luck!
“Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn’t. - Charles Bukowski
"Derrière chaque fortune se cache un crime"...
You were working for us, the readers, who derived a lot of pleasure out of the writings.
Regards
Bill
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