Jann S. Wenner started Rolling Stone magazine in 1967 in the Bay Area when he was 21 years old. In the half-century since its founding, Rolling Stone has become a legendary music publication that defined cool and set trends during the ’60s, ’70s, 80s, and ’90s. During its heyday, the magazine not only guided the music scene but also defined the counterculture—running stories by iconic writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe and starting the careers of well-known photographers, like Annie Leibovitz, with their many famous cover photos (such as their 1981 cover photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono).
However, in recent years, Rolling Stone has seen a dive in popularity. Part of this can be attributed to changes affecting all print publishing, and particularly independent publishers, as readers increasingly move to online publications. However, Rolling Stone as a business was not without its own missteps. The publication was heavily criticized after it ran a 9,000-word story about an unproven gang rape at the University of Virginia that was heavily questioned after it went viral, and the magazine eventually had to retract the story. Furthermore, some have cited that Rolling Stone remains rooted in the past and needs to remain more up-to-date with current music trends.
Yesterday, The New York Times announced that Jann Wenner would be selling his controlling stake of Rolling Stone up for sale. In the lengthy article, Wenner acknowledged that while he loved his job and the magazine that he founded half-a-century ago, putting the publication up for sale was “just the smart thing to do.” Wenner, and his 27-year-old son, Gus, have already been working to salvage Rolling Stone‘s parent company—the family-owned Wenner Media—with the recent sale of Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, the other two magazines under the company, and last year’s sale of 49 percent stake of Rolling Stone to a music company in Singapore, BandLab Technologies.
With the sale of the magazine, Wenner hopes that the magazine can grow with the times and continue his legacy. Though both Jann and Gus Wenner hope to remain involved with Rolling Stone, the father-son duo recognize that the new owner of the company would be in control of that decision. However, longtime music critic and contributing editor at Rolling Stone, Anthony DeCurtis, expressed shock at the announcement of the sale in the New York Times piece, noting that he never thought that the company’s founder would sell the magazine, and later remarking, “That sense of the magazine editor’s hands on the magazine — that’s what’s going to get lost here. I don’t know who’s going to be able to step in and do that anymore.”
[H/T New York Times]