Shirley Halperin has resigned as editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Magazine just a year after joining the publication amid rising complaints that it has failed to pay overdue bills to freelancers and vendors, TheWrap has learned.
In a statement to TheWrap on Saturday, the magazine’s president and publisher Christopher Gialanella wrote, “We are proud that Los Angeles Magazine will have a profitable year in a challenging media environment and circulation is way up. We will be announcing our new Editor-In-Chief in the next two weeks.”
It wasn’t immediately clear who would oversee the publication in the interim as Halperin is set to depart on Friday.
Halperin did not respond to a request for comment.
For months, the outlet has faced complaints from freelancers who say that the new owners, prominent L.A.-based trial lawyers Mark Geragos and Ben Meiselas, have refused to pay freelance writers, reporters, photographers and graphic artists.
Geragos and Ben Meiselas bought L.A. Magazine, one of the oldest city magazines in the country, in late 2022 for more than $6 million from Detroit-based Hour Media, with promises to invest in the magazine, which was losing money at the time.
Instead, the financial situation has worsened considerably, according to numerous insiders. A spokesperson for Geragos and Meiselas did not respond to requests for comment about late payments and layoffs.
Greg Gilman, who Halperin hired as executive editor for the LAMag.com website, left a month ago over his freelancers going unpaid and what one former staffer described to TheWrap as a complete “lack of vision and strategy by new owners” who have “little or no regard for journalists and media industry.”
“I just think it’s two lawyers who have no respect for journalism,” that former staffer said of the owners. “Very sad.”
The magazine has chosen to pay 10 “vendors” per pay period, with those classified as vendors including all freelance contributors, a second insider told TheWrap. Freelancers were moved from contracts requiring payment with 30 days to contracts that don’t require payment for 60 days, but multiple sources tell TheWrap that freelancers still aren’t getting paid after 60 days.
Freelancers who weren’t paid for their work include L.A. Press Club winner Jon Regardie, among others. Another employee, according to the first source, was owed more than a year’s worth of salary.
The insiders told TheWrap that the company that used to print L.A. Magazine, Southwest Offest Printing, dropped the media outlet as a client after it wasn’t paid for its services — they’d announced their partnership in July 2023. The magazine instead scrambled to find an out-of-state printer. Southwest Offset Printing wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by TheWrap on Saturday.
A source also said the magazine’s account with photo provider Getty Images was shut down after L.A. Magazine didn’t pay their bill.
The company remains far behind on payments and it appeared unlikely they would be able to catch up any time soon. They have also struggled to be able to find new freelancers as word of others not being paid has gotten out as the outlet even struggled to pay their staff.
“It’s a shell of its former self,” a former staff member told TheWrap, describing the company as “a communication company that doesn’t communicate.”
The company has laid off multiple staff members recently as it continues to cut costs. Writer Sam Youngman, a journalist brought in by co-owner Ben Meiselas along with two other staffers from his publication MeidasTouch to help grow the digital audience on LAMag.com, is leaving that position but remaining an editor-at-large for the organization. The effort was part of a strategic shift similar to one pursued by a number of digital outlets, who have opted to deliver a greater quantity of short posts focused around political news rather than more resource-intensive original reporting.
Those laid off include Eric Mercado, an editor with the magazine for the past 26 years, along with production manager Michelle Mondragon. Former Los Angeles Magazine executive editor Joseph Kapsch previously sued the outlet for lost wages and violating California labor law.
Sharon Waxman contributed to this report.
