彭博首席内容官缘何重返时代公司

    资深媒体高管诺姆•珀尔斯汀重返时代公司(Time Inc.)——8年前，他辞去了时代公司总编辑(editor-in-chief)一职。然而，与他当年离开时的情形相比，他重新加入的这家公司如今看起来已经大不相同。

    明年初，时代公司将从时代华纳公司(Time Warner)分拆出来，珀尔斯汀的到来标志着“总编辑”这项他曾经担任的职位将不复存在。相反，珀尔斯汀将出任他此前在彭博社(Bloomberg LP)的职衔——首席内容官(chief content officer)，而目前的总编辑玛莎•尼尔森预计将离开公司。他的老板将是时代公司新晋CEO乔•瑞普。上世纪90年代，瑞普曾担任时代公司首席财务官，两人的办公室非常接近。这些年来，珀尔斯汀和瑞普一直保持着联系。2009年，彭博社从麦格劳希尔集团(McGraw-Hill)收购《商业周刊》( Businessweek)的时候，珀尔斯汀还曾聘请瑞普担任这笔交易的顾问。

    近日接受《财富》杂志专访时，珀尔斯汀解释了他重返时代公司的原因，并对这项新职位和公司的未来发表了他的见解。以下是这次专访的内容摘要。

    《财富》：你为什么离开彭博社，重返时代公司？

    珀尔斯汀：首先需要指出的是，我在彭博社度过了一段非常难忘的时光，我非常喜欢为丹•多克托洛夫工作，所以我过去并没有离职的打算。但今年夏天，乔•瑞普被任命为时代公司CEO，我们随后开始聊（主要是以老朋友的身份）时代公司，以及这家公司从时代华纳剥离究竟意味着什么。瑞普和玛莎决定分道扬镳之后，他问我有没有兴趣出担当这个新角色。所以说，我的决定是多重考虑的结果：我确实萌生了与多年的好朋友、好同事一起工作的念头，但我也认为，在时代公司工作是一件非常激动人心的事情。不仅仅是因为它即将被时代华纳分拆出来，另一个重要原因是，这家企业正在迅速演变，令人目不暇接。

    你如何定义首席内容官这一角色，它跟你过去担任的总编辑职位有何不同？

    就某些方面而言，总编辑的职责是相当明确的。我是时代公司第五位总编辑，也是首位来自公司外部的总编辑——在这里的每一周，我都提醒自己这一点。总编辑的传统工作是跟纽约多家期刊的编辑交流互动，我们主要商讨杂志的措辞和图片。

    对编辑独立性、内容质量和标准负责将依然是首席内容官的重要工作之一。我不能采取理所当然的态度，因为你每天都面临与这份职责相关的质疑。比如，第一天来这里上班，我就花了很长时间阅读《体育画报》(Sports Illustrated )的一篇文章，在保护消息来源等方面，这篇文章的确存在一些问题。

    但这份工作还给我提供了一个成为CEO合作伙伴的机会。从公司战略，到新产品开发，再到现有品牌的延伸，我们可以一起思考所有重大事务。一家即将在传媒业的多事之秋上市的公司尤其需要这样一种不同的关系。它的象征之一是，我没有搬回我过去使用的那间办公室，而是在瑞普的套间找了一个办公场所。这件事听起来似乎没有什么特别重要的意义，但根据我11年前在这里工作的经验，如果你和CEO相隔遥远，以至于你需要打电话预约，你就不可能成为他的亲密同事。

    Veteran media executive Norm Pearlstine is back at Time Inc., eight years after stepping down as editor-in-chief. But the company he rejoins looks very different than the one he left.

    Time Inc. is being spun out of Time Warner (TWX) early next year, and Pearlstine's arrival signals the demise of the editor-in-chief role he once held. Instead, he will be "chief content officer" -- a title he most recently held at Bloomberg LP -- while current EIC Martha Nelson is expected to leave the company. His boss will be recently-installed CEO Joe Ripp, a former Time Inc. chief financial officer whose office was adjacent to Pearlstine's back in the 1990s. The pair had stayed in touch over the years, with Pearlstine even recruiting Ripp to advise on Bloomberg's 2009 acquisition of Businessweek from McGraw-Hill.

    We wanted to speak to Pearlstine about why he came back to Time Inc., about his new role and the company's future. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation:

    FORTUNE: Why did you leave Bloomberg and return to Time?

    PEARLSTINE: First of all, I had a great run at Bloomberg and loved working for Dan Doctoroff, so I had no plans to leave. But when Joe Ripp was named CEO of Time Inc. over the summer, we started talking -- really more as old friends, about Time Inc. and the implications of a spinoff from Time Warner. When he and Martha decided they were going to go their separate ways he contacted me and asked if I'd have any interest in coming in as this new role. So my decision was really the combination of working with a very old friend and colleague, coupled with what I think is a very exciting time at Time Inc. Not only because it's being spun off, but because of how quick the business is moving and changing.

    How do you define this chief content officer role, as opposed to the editor-in-chief position you once held?

    The editor-in-chief role was fairly well-defined in some respects. I was the fifth -- and the first to come from outside the company, as I was reminded every week I was here, and traditionally the editor-in-chief primarily interacted with the editors of the main New York titles. It was very much about the words and pictures in the magazines...

    Being responsible for editorial independence and quality and standards will remain an important part of what I do as chief content officer. And I don't take it for granted, because you are questioned about it every day. For example, I spent my first day here reading a Sports Illustrated piece where there were some questions about confidentiality of sources and so forth.

    But the other part of this job is the opportunity to be a partner to the CEO and together think about everything from strategy to new products to extensions of existing brands. Particularly for a company that is about to go public in a time of extraordinary turbulence in our industry, it really called for a different kind of relationship. One symbol of that is that I'm not moving back to my old office, but have taken one in Joe's suite. What that may not sound particularly significant, I knew from my prior 11 years up here that you can't be a very close colleague to the CEO when you have so much physical space between you and him that you need to call to make appointments.