• Women's Wear Daily, Monday, April 2, 2012 3:26 PM

In the new age of magazine publishing, when pubs have branched out into Web sites, TV shows, apps -- and in the case of Bon Appetit, a cookware line -- a magazine's editor in chief has become like a "content brand officer," writes John Koblin.

In a well-balanced feature, Koblin presents an assorted group of of editors and publishing execs commenting on this trend. Many editors seem to relish this expansion of duties, but The New Yorker's David Remnick and Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter are less posiitve about what GQ editor in chief Jim Nelson calls "the cult of the brand."

"Then there’s that Church-State quandary," writes Koblin. "The old magazine business–editorial wall is being reconstructed with a lot of unfamiliar building material....And, once the wall is down, is there no more split between the business interests of the magazine and the editorial but one big Media-ocracy where every editorial choice is puréed by business considerations?"

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