Staff Cuts, Departures at The Source, Future Uncertain

This month, I’ve been very fortunate to get three assignments from The Source: two album reviews and a “Back to the Lab” feature. Although the assignments were made by two of the top editors at the magazine, my attempts to find out what’s going on behind the scenes have been largely unsuccessful, although Senior Editor Soren Baker today confirmed that Editor-in-Chief Fahyim Ratcliffe and News Editor Chloe Hilliard had left the magazine last week. He didn’t say whether the two quit or were fired. As far as I know, the magazine is now edited by Baker and Executive Editor Ryan Ford, both of whom are based in Los Angeles.

In its Feb. 26 report on the shake-up, SOHH.com quotes Hilliard, who calls the situation “sad” but commends the recently departed staff:

“People have been focusing on the lack of focus and lack of ads … The content improved immensely while they were there. When the book is 96 pages, that's what people focus on."

The future of the Source it looks like is in the hands of its financiers (or overseers, however you put it), the Black Enterprise/Greenwich Street Corporate Growth Fund, which is sponsored by Black Enterprise magazine and Travelers Group, a predecessor of Citigroup Inc., according to business newspaper The Deal. The Fund has sustained the Source financially since ousting Mays and Benzino from the magazine last year, but how long that will go on is unclear.

I personally hope that the BE fund continues to support the Source. Competition is good in any industry, especially media, and while Harris Publications is doing a commendable job, I believe competition can only help – not hurt – its titles.

Lastly, I want to point out that Good Magazine recently listed The Source in its list of the top 51 magazines ever, giving the following reason:

“Started in 1988 as a Harvard radio-show ’zine, it was the first magazine to give frontline coverage to the war on drugs, expose NYPD brutality, and introduce the world to a guy named Biggie Smalls. Its fall from grace was wince-worthy, but it wasn’t called the hip hop bible (by its own founders, mind you) for nothing.”

-Slav

Slav Kandyba writes Hip Hop Files.

Comments

[Clyde Smith]

I would be surprised if the magazine disappeared but it may face some serious harshness if the investors aren't happy.

I don't know any of these people but I think the idea that simply improving content (whatever that actually means) can make a publication a success is a fallacy.

The strongest statement I saw out of the new management was the early online proclamation that The Source was now 100% Benzino free.

While that's a good line, it's not a real position. I haven't gotten a sense of The Source repositioning itself to take real advantage of the change in ownership. They needed a good strong new position that played off the old because it was Mays and Benzino that were associated with The Source as the Bible of hip hop.

Describing themselvs as The New Testament and then following through with what that change would mean for the publication would have been one route (off the top of my head but it's an example of what I'm getting at).

Lack of focus is always bad and undermines even great content.

[Cam]

Music editor Bill Heinzelman is gone too...Soren Baker is the only one left from Mays/Benzino era - Whoopy!

[Slav]

The New Testament is a neat little idea. It seems like the people who were left in the heap of smoldering ruins in the post-Mayzino era were simply trying to douse the flames. Or perhaps a better metaphor is a sinking boat, and the crew using buckets to get water out. I guess at the end it won't matter how fast they bucket, but when and IF the Coast Guard will arrive to tow the ship to get fixed up.

Cam, whoopy indeed! LOL

[Clyde Smith]

The sinking boat metaphor fits the impression I've gotten without knowing much behind the scenes. Given that a pretty serious investment firm took over, putting the staff in that position and seeing what comes out is a beginner's blunder. Something doesn't fit together here at all.

Does somebody with money really believe that all they need to do is bandage the vessel and stick it back in the ocean?

Maybe they're just trying to get it to a stable enough point that it can be resold?

[Clyde Smith]

I just checked out their website. I had to turn off my popup blocker just to get to the blog. That site is counterproductive in its current form.

All the general reader can really say is that the old guys are gone, the old guys involved with everything The Source stood for, who coined the hip hop bible term, and the new guys are here.

The problem is, that message can only be effective for a short while and anything positive to be gained by being the new guys is gone, long gone.

It just blows my mind what people do with their money.

They should have made the turnaround a reality tv show and raked in the dough.

[Diggiti]

I bought a copy of The Source to read on the train last week. IT SUCKS SOOO BAD ! I Ripped it up and left it on the train. I Will never buy it again. Even Revamped

[Slav]

Um, like what exactly about it sucks, in your opinion? Just curious.