Saturday, January 31, 2009
Leann Kleinmann Leaves Skirt! Magazine; Takes Commercial Appeal Blog With Her
Posted by Chris Davis on Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 4:00 AM
After 15-years with the CA, what prompted the career switch? "St. Mary's offered me this really incredible job," says Kleinmann, who is also a former editor of Memphis magazine. After 15 years at The Commercial Appeal, it was time to try something different.
"Of course, I'll always be a journalist," she says. "I don't think I could ever not be a journalist. ... After writing [iDiva] for the last four years, I can't imagine going for a week not writing about what's going on in Memphis."
Kleinmann will have a well-established forum for sharing her thoughts. When she leaves, she'll be taking a little piece of the CA with her.
"The Commercial Appeal is going to let me keep the iDiva blog as my personal website," she says. "I think I have a pretty authentic voice, so I don't imagine that the blog will change very much."
According to Kleinmann, her as-yet-unnamed replacement at Skirt! will be a lucky editor. "It's a plum job," she says.
In September 2007, the CA started publishing the Memphis version of Skirt!, a woman's magazine founded in 1994 in Charleston, South Carolina. Kleinmann was its first editor.
"It's been a wonderful experience," Kleinmann says of her time at Skirt, adding that she's proud of the diversity she's brought to the magazine. "There are so many women doing things out there who just fall through the cracks."
-- Chris Davis
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Headline: Journalistic has-been abandons two burning buildings, simultaneously leaves CA and Skirt. Big woop. A mediocre journalist leaves two mediocre publications in favor of a job funded by white folks who can afford to pay $20,000 a year so their kids don't have to go to school with poor black folk. And that's somehow either admirable or newsworthy? This is nothing more than the Peter Principle in operation.
I'm happy for Leanne. The CA, like many newspapers, is on a swift downhill slide to oblivion. Shrinking ad revenues -- not to mention the cost-cutting shrinkage of the actual size of the paper -- tell the world, "We're in trouble." I know other CA alums who jumped ship before they were laid off. Leanne is wise to bail for the sake of job security. St. Mary's isn't going anywhere, and I think she's a good fit for the position.
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