Interview with Vox Media and New York Media CEOs about their contract

Last night, I learned that my employer, Vox Media, was buying New York Media, the publisher of New York magazine and sites such as Vulture and The Cut.

This morning, I interviewed Jim Bankoff, CEO of Vox Media, and Pam Wasserstein, CEO of New York Media, for our Recode the support Podcast.

And I learned that interviewing your boss, officially and in a public forum, was as difficult as I imagined. You are no more likely to get a straightforward answer to an uncomfortable question than someone who does not work for your boss. And you do not really get points for asking this uncomfortable question.

It's my job to ask these kinds of questions. Like: Why did Bankoff and Wasserstein decide to bond now rather than in 2018, when Wasserstein hired bankers to consider selling his family business? And since the two companies have different sites with overlapping themes and audiences, is not it logical to merge some of them instead of separating them, as Bankoff promised?

For the record, Bankoff and Wasserstein claim that they have reached agreement now rather than earlier, as both companies are healthier than in the past. Bankoff and Wasserstein say they already manage sites with overlapping coverage areas – Vox / Recode, for example, covers technologies, as is The Verge, owned by Vox Media – and that's not a problem.

You can hear our full conversation below or listen to it via Apple Podcast here:

In the meantime, instead of any privileged information about the contract – knowing when to write about your employer and when not to have been an interesting experience for me – I have some thoughts.

• The arguments of Bankoff and Wasserstein – which they have repeated at multiple points of sale – have at least some merit that they are doing better than in the past. Wasserstein explains that her business has improved over the past year for several reasons, as she has found new ways to make money in addition to screen advertising, such as her online link business. # 39; affiliation. Vox Media has also been able to diversify its revenues through television programming contracts and podcasts. (Well done for podcasts!) And although Vox, like many other publishers, relied heavily on Facebook 's ability to help it create an audience and an audience, it' s not a good idea. is never fully committed to the platform of Mark Zuckerberg, who has finally decided to withdraw less painfully. that it was for other editors.
• And, as Bankoff and I have discussed on the podcast, many of the digital clusters we've seen in recent years have been desperate sales fires (see: Mic, Mashable, and Gizmodo). It's not one of those, but because it's a contract that deals solely with shares between two private companies, we will not know the true value of networking for a while. I think we'll see other combinations of the kind that BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti suggested last year. Vice and Refinery29, for one, are still working on an agreement that started earlier this year.
• Bankoff is committed to eliminating any editorial jobs when the two companies merge, leaving open the very real possibility that Vox will consolidate other areas of the business, such as technology activities. or sale. He told me that the agreement was not based on cost reduction, but it is different to say that it will not reduce some costs.
• It is always very reasonable to wonder why New York Media and Vox Media would not want to merge some of their editorial properties, as some of them overlap, like Grub Street in New York and Vox's Eater. Even if you did not want to do it to save money, you thought that there would be a commercial reason to promote, for example, a property-centric food instead of two centrally-located properties on the diet. Wasserstein and Bankoff insist that this does not happen. If you are not convinced by this, you are not alone.
• That said, as a Vox Media employee, I feel much better that we are connecting with a publisher who is doing a great job and doing a lot of work that we do not do that if we had combined with a publisher with more overlap. I also know that this combination does not prevent others from being on the road, so I take nothing for granted.
• Speaking of not taking things for granted, I am quite happy to work for a place that allows me to write about my employer. What I like to do a lot more than interview my employer.