"No Comment" Bites Maxim Publisher on the Ass

Refusing to grant an interview and then complaining about the reporter's facts is perhaps the number one way to make yourself look like a fool.

Media Life magazine reports that Stephen Colvin, pres and CEO of Dennis Publishing is hopping mad over a Dec. 8 Fortune Magazine story headlined "Maxim Has a Midlife Crisis," in which tech writer Devin Leonard argues that Dennis' US magazines, Maxim, Stuff and Blender, are faltering.

Maxim founder Felix Dennis refused to grant an interview to Fortune's Devin Leonard, and now sounds like a lunatic complaining about the story. Had he been interviewed and misquoted, that would be one thing, but he refused to participate. That's just dumb and the worst kind of PR blunder.

Why, oh why would a company refuse to speak to a Fortune Magazine reporter when they know a story is being written?

Colvin, in a blistering letter to Fortune managing editor Rik Kirkland, Time Inc. editorial chief Norm Pearlstine and Time Inc. president Ann Moore, claims that the story, which he describes as a "despicable slash and burn job," was written in retaliation because the writer was denied an interview with Dennis founder Felix Dennis.

Leonard was already writing the story when he tried to get the interview with Leonard. He wrote the piece using the sources who would talk to him. Because that's his job.

As Steve Hall said in adrants, www.adrants.com, "Even the magazine publishing industry is turning into a Jerry Springer show."

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