Photo: Courtesy of Yahoo.Marissa Mayer's reign at Yahoo has certainly been eventful. Just one day after the new CEO fired COO Henrique De Castro, editor-in-chief Jai Singh has left the company. The official word is that Singh quit of his own accord, following Mayer's plans to put Yahoo's media content under the direction of reputedly divisive marketing head Kathy Savitt. Let's hope nobody around there ordered new business cards.
For those who don't know, marketing and editorial are the equivalent of church and state in the journalism world. While marketing input such as traffic analytics and the like is always worked into editorial practices, appointing a CMO to head up content is highly unorthodox. The presumption is that content will be guided by the bottom line and pleasing advertisers, not practicing objective journalism.
The journalism community will of course be anxious to see if Mayer finds a (non-marketing) replacement for Singh soon. Given his tenure as The Huffington Post managing editor and CNET EIC, Singh — who joined Yahoo in 2011 — has left some pretty big shoes to fill. Will Savitt or Mayer's new recruits like Katie Couric or former New York Times deputy news editor Megan Liberman be able to compensate? (Re/code)