The New York Observer named the former publisher of Spin magazine as its new president Wednesday — and endorsed a new president for the country, too.
Soon after surprising many by endorsing Republican Mitt Romney for president, the company announced Mike Albanese would replace Christopher Barnes, who announced his resignation in August to either start his own company or run a bigger-budget enterprise.
Albanese previously headed the music magazine Spin before its acquisition by BuzzMedia earlier this year.
"Mike has an innovative approach and desire to experiment and press hard to find new and creative strategies to grow businesses," publisher Jared Kusher (left with wife Ivanka Trump) wrote in a memo first obtained by Capital New York's Joe Pompeo. "That is what we have done at the Observer Media Group over the past 6 years and is why we have continued to grow in a challenging media environment."
Also read: N.Y. Observer Editor-in-Chief, President to Depart
In the memo, Kushner said the company's revenue is on pace to grow 25 percent, making 2012 "a record year."
The Observer's Romney endorsement came as a surprise to some, as the paper backed then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008.
However, the salmon-colored weekly's editors said the country — unlike the newspaper company, apparently — was on a downward trajectory.
"America supported [Obama] (as did this newspaper)," the front-page editorial reads, "but his presidency, so filled with promise and potential, has failed to deliver the change America needs."
One person likely to enjoy the endorsement is Kusher's father-in-law, Donald Trump.
"All the guys that said @MittRomney would lose are rapidly coming on board," tweeted the real estate mogul, whose prolific 140-character feed is filled with anti-Obama messages. "Mitt will remember the early helpers."