In the latest round of New York media poaching, Frank Rich has cut 30 years worth of ties with The New York Times to jump to New York magazine.
In announcing the move, Adam Moss, editor of New York—himself a New York Times alum—noted his longtime association with Rich, which began when Moss ran the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Describing Rich as a “powerhouse critic of arts and culture,” Moss called his hire “a very big day for New York.”
Rich started at the Times in 1980 as the chief drama critic. He later began writing longer pieces for the daily newspaper and its Sunday magazine. He began writing his op-ed columns in 1994. At New York, he’ll be an essayist, writing monthly on politics and culture, editing a monthly section and writing an online column.
His selection is a curious choice for the New York City-centric weekly, given his column’s focus on national issues.
"Frank is going to be writing about everything under the sun for us, tackling broader subject matter than what he's been covering in his Times column,” Moss said in a statement provided to Adweek. We do not see ourselves as a magazine about New York but rather a magazine with a distinct sensibility writing often about all sorts of topics of national interest, from culture to politics to social trends. That's been true since the day Clay Felker founded the magazine but it's never been more true than now."
Rich’s hire is something of a comeuppance for the Times. New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren, who was previously Moss’ deputy at New York, has hired away a number of people he worked with while at New York over the past few months, including most recently designer Ian Adelman.
Rich may be one of the biggest names to defect from the Times in recent months in what’s been a series of horse-trading among media outlets. Others who’ve left the paper include war correspondent Dexter Filkins, who jumped to The New Yorker; Sunday business editor Tim O’Brien, now at the Huffington Post; and op-ed editor David Shipley, who went to Bloomberg LP.
In related news, the Times announced Tuesday that columnist Joe Nocera will move from the paper’s business section to its op-ed page.
Photo courtesy of New York Times Co.
