Media

At Boston, a staff under stress

by Dan Kennedy

With Boston magazine's top two editors leaving and the massive "Best of Boston" issue looming dead ahead, it's a stressed-out group of editors and writers who are reporting for duty this week at Horticultural Hall, where the monthly magazine's offices are located.

Executive editor John Strahinich turned in his resignation on Tuesday morning after it became clear to him that he wouldn't be seriously considered for the top spot. Strahinich's last day will be June 16. His departure follows that of Craig Unger, who resigned as editor last week following what sources say was months of feuding with owner Herb Lipson (see Don't Quote Me," News and Features, May 26).

"The staff is devastated. Just devastated," says an insider. "Everybody's freaked out."

Strahinich, Unger's number two, says he decided to leave following several conversations about the editor's job with associate publisher and managing partner Dan Scully. "It was up or out for me. I've done everything I wanted to do at Boston magazine except become editor," says Strahinich, 51. He adds that he has no job prospects at the moment.

Responds Scully: "What I told him is that he is encouraged to apply. If he is reading tea leaves or handwriting on the wall, that's up to him." He adds, "I would have preferred that he stay."

Scully praised Strahinich for leaving with the July, August, and September issues essentially done. Until a new editor is named, he says, editing tasks will be handled by senior staff members. If need be, Scully adds, Stephen Fried, who edits Lipson's flagship magazine, Philadelphia, will be consulted.

But Scully's comments -- especially about future issues -- raised eyebrows among some at the magazine. The August "Best of Boston" issue, which will come out the last week of July, closes in about a month. And though much of it is already in the can, much reportedly still remains to be done on the 320-page issue. The situation for the September issue is even dicier. It's not that work is running behind on either one, but some warn of trouble ahead if a new editor and executive editor are not hired soon.

Says one source of Scully's editing-by-staff plan: "That's not going to last very long. It's going to burn people out, and people are going to get really pissed off."

In not moving quickly to promote Strahinich, Lipson lost a man who was seen by some insiders as precisely what the magazine needed at the top of the masthead: a veteran journalist who knows where the bodies are buried, both in the city and at the magazine. A Chicago native who's been working in Boston since the 1970s, Strahinich put in 13¹/2 years with the magazine -- from 1984 to '93, when he left to pursue a freelance writing career, and then since 1995. Strahinich is philosophical about his latest departure, saying, "There are no hard feelings. They're not being mean to me. They've been nice to me."

One Boston contributor, told of Strahinich's departure, reacted with a mixture of surprise and sympathy. "Even when Unger was chugging at top speed, I was getting messages from Strahinich all hours of the day and night," this source says. "He really must have been busting his ass."

And who might the next editor be? "We're interested in finding a Boston person -- someone with strong Boston ties," Scully says.