Michael Wolff Named Editorial Director of e5’s Adweek Media

Vanity Fair columnist, Newser founder and media pugilist hired by Hollywood Reporter parent

Michael Wolff, outspoken Vanity Fair columnist, Newser founder and frequent thorn in Rupert Murdoch’s side, has a new gig.

Wolff was hired by Jimmy Finklestein’s e5 Global Media to become editorial director of Adweek Media — the publisher of Adweek, Mediaweek and Brandweek.

It’s an unusual hiring to say the least. The columnist and provocateur known for getting into very public media feuds says he has no plans to tone it down at Adweek — despite the clubby industry it covers.

In accepting the job, Wolff said: “I want to make some trouble.”

“There is no editor and writer that has more passion and edge about the media business than Michael Wolff,” e5 CEO Richard Beckman said. (“He’s controversial,” Beckman told the New York Times over the weekend, even employing a breakfast analogy. “Which is good. If you want to make an omelet you have to break some eggs.”)

It’s the second high-profile hire for e5 since Beckman’s come on board. In May, the company coaxed Janice Min, the former editor of Us Weekly, to become editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter.

And Min has certainly changed the culture and tone of that publication since her arrival.

As part of his hiring agreement, Wolff will retain his contributing editor title at Vanity Fair but no longer write a media column for the magazine. He will write for e5, though. “I will be the dominant voice in the Adweek constellation,” he told the Times.

Wolff wrote a 2008 biography of Murdoch, “The Man Who Owns the News”; soon after its publication. Murdoch’s New York Post began to take shots at Wolff, reporting on an alleged affair Wolff had with a Vanity Fair-turned-Newser intern.

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