Irvine Boat Magazine Publisher Throws Life Raft to "Editor and Publisher"

​The reports of Editor & Publisher's death were exaggerated.

That those reports came from the print media industry's leading trade magazine itself is not important right now, nor that fact that the New York-based company shut its doors two weeks ago.

What is important is E&P has been saved--by an Irvine-based boating magazine publisher.

Duncan McIntosh Co.--which publishes Boating World magazine; Sea Magazine, America's Western Boating Magazine; The Log Newspaper; and FishRap, and produces Newport Beach's spring Newport Boat Show and fall Lido Yacht Expo--acquired E&P and editorandpublisher.com for an undisclosed sum, it was announced today.

Duncan McIntosh reportedly floated the idea of rescuing the 126-year-old "bible of the newspaper industry" when the Nielsen Co. announced the magazine's closing in December.

"Such a critical information source for a newspaper industry so desperately in need of help should not go away," McIntosh says in the sale announcement. "I've been a reader of E&P over the course of 30 years and know its incredible value to readers and advertisers."

He's been joined as a reader by countless journalists, who relied on E&P's job ads for decades before the existence of online listings found on Craiglist, MediaBistro.com and JournalismJobs.com. But last month's announced closure was no surprise to longtime professionals who have watched the sad implosion of the print industry in the digital age.

According to the announcement, Charles "Chas" McKeown will continue as publisher of E&P, while Mark Fitzgerald, a 26-year industry veteran who most recently served as E&P's editor-at-large, becomes the new editor.

"I'm of course grateful to Duncan for stepping up to keep E&P alive, and I've been extremely impressed by the passion and energy he is bringing to this enterprise," Fitzgerald says in the statement. "I'm humbled to be leading a news organization that I've always believed produces one of the best news reports of any industry sector."