Black Tuesday: AMI Shutters MPH
Crap. Crap and fucking crap. David Pecker, we're so never talking to you again it's not even funny. According to our media-gossipy brother and sister over at Gawker, reported by AdAge and confirmed by sources within the mag itself, American Media has given mph the axe. Alterman, Thomas, Austin, and Wendler were to varying degrees pals and/or great sources, and there was definitely a lot of mutual admiration between our site and their mag. All of us over here at Jalopnik are deeply saddened by the news. No shit, we're like emo about it.
Their circ was growing while others' were falling. They'd really started to hit their stride. They were one of the strongest magazine crews the auto publishing world's seen on this side of the pond in quite a while. When we saw that AMI had cherry-picked Alterman, Pund and Austin to fire the pub up, we knew they'd done it right; they'd nabbed three of the best young minds in the business, and they were handing them the reins.
The first few issues, as we've said to the guys personally, were a bit bro-hammy for our tastes. But as they got more comfortable with what they wanted the mag to be, it went from strength to strength, and we ended up unabashed fans, even as we gave them friendly shit from time to time. We've got no doubt that the guys involved will land on their feet and find other jobs; they're all talented, witty characters who truly give a fuck. The automobile trade needs more like them, and folks in the industry would be idiots not to listen to what they have to say.
So fuck you, David Pecker. You get the black spot this week, even if we've gotta cut it out of our own damn bible. Sure as shit, the world didn't need another rag like Celebrity Living or a Spanish-language fitness magazine. But it did need mph. Screw you for screwing our friends. And a pox on your colon for taking away a valuable voice in the industry. To bite off the magnificent d. boon, who would've been 48 last Saturday, writing men are pissed. And to quote our late pal Joe Strummer, "Forget about it, you can go it alone." Yeah, but fuck that, man. Fuck. That. Best of luck, boys. We know you'll be back, but we'll miss you like hell.
American Media Shuts Celebrity Living Weekly [AdAge via Gawker
Related:
MPH Goes Metal [Internal]