Media

Michael Duffy Departs Time as an Era Keeps Ending

A three-decade, 50-cover-story vet goes over the side as a new digital regime consolidates: “With Duffy gone, the vestiges of what Time used to be go with him,” said a former colleague.
Michael Duffy with Nancy Gibbs 1996.
Michael Duffy with Nancy Gibbs, 1996.By Ted Thai/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images.

Time magazine, which has persistently endeavored to shed its dead-tree skin and fully embrace the digital world, is set to drop another legacy journalist from its masthead. I’ve learned that Michael Duffy, deputy managing editor of Time and editorial director of parent company Time Inc., has decided to leave the company after more than 32 years. His resignation follows that of Nancy Gibbs, a longtime colleague, collaborator, and friend who resigned from her post as editor in chief in September, as I reported. In a notable changing of the guard, Gibbs was succeeded by Edward Felsenthal, who emerged as a key lieutenant after joining Time in 2013 to oversee the publication’s digital presence, which has expanded significantly under his watch.

In the last three decades, Time has been defined by the potent group of journalists who emerged there in the 80s, such as Maureen Dowd, Jim Kelly, Alessandra Stanley, Michiko Kakutani, Walter Isaacson, Rick Stengel, Kurt Andersen, Frank Rich, and Evan Thomas, to name a few. (Graydon Carter, the editor of V.F., is also a member of this prestigious group.) Gibbs’s departure seemed to signal the end of that era—but Duffy’s exit is really the end; it means the last of Time’s old guard from that period is leaving the building. Duffy joined the magazine in 1985, the same year as Gibbs, as a Pentagon correspondent, and went on to become the storied newsweekly’s No. 2 newsroom figure, with more than 50 cover stories under his belt, two books co-authored with Gibbs, and a regular presence on the Beltway’s weekly public-affairs shows. Duffy, himself, has been up for Time’s top newsroom job in the past, but he has preferred to remain in Washington as opposed to moving to New York. One former colleague described him to me as “the most influential, but not generally well-known, person in New York media circles that I can think of.” This person added: “With Duffy gone, the vestiges of what Time used to be go with him.”

Confirming the news in a brief phone conversation, Duffy said, “Like any number of journalists of my generation and experience, it felt like if I was ever gonna try something different, this would be a good moment. I have a 26-year-old son who’s worked more places than I have.” What’s next? Stay tuned, Duffy said.

Duffy is the latest in the march of top Time talent heading out the door. In addition to Gibbs, editor-at-large David Von Drehle and Washington bureau chief Michael Scherer both recently joined The Washington Post; this week, word came that White House correspondent Zeke Miller is joining the Associated Press as a White House reporter. At the same time, the newsroom has been attracting new blood, such as Molly Ball, who’s coming on board from The Atlantic as national political correspondent. There’s also been an expansion of Web-centric positions over the past few years. One insider I was talking to recently said that not long ago, it felt like Time was filled with lots of “waspy Ivy League grads,” but that the newsroom mix has changed as a more diverse cohort of millennial digital types has entered the DNA, making Time a place that’s just as likely to write about the latest viral Internet stories filling people’s Facebook feeds as it is the weighty world affairs filling the magazine’s print pages. Time has captured buzz with new digital initiatives like the women’s-focused site Motto and a multi-platform project documenting Scott Kelly’s year in space.

Like all print publications, Time has struggled with losses in its legacy revenues and experienced difficulty monetizing digital growth, a conundrum that Time Inc. has been sorting through as it repositions itself as a digital-first media company that also happens to own a bunch of decades-old magazines, including Fortune, Sports Illustrated, People, and Entertainment Weekly. Beset by a flagging stock price and stagnant quarterly financial results, the publisher said last week that it will slash the frequency and circulation of several major titles. As part of the move, Time’s circulation will drop from 3 million to 2 million, though it will continue to publish 44 issues per year, as the New York Post reported. The Post is also reporting that yet another of Time Inc.’s all-too-familiar downsizings is nigh, with 200 employees, half of them in editorial, expected to receive pink slips.