The Fall of the House of Forbes: The Inside Story of the Collapse of a Media Empire

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The Fall of the House of Forbes: The Inside Story of the Collapse of a Media Empire Pub. Date: 9/27/2011 Publisher: St. Martin's Press

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Overview

Forbes: the legendary name in finance journalism. Synonymous with wealth, grand excess, glamour, and fun as well as style, insight, gossip, and hard-nosed reporting, the media empire and the family behind it form a remarkable story that has never been told. Now, in The Fall of the House of Forbes, veteran journalist Stewart Pinkerton reveals the hidden machinations, disastrous decisions, and personal foibles of a century-old dynasty that rose to glittering heights and crashed just as spectacularly.

Writing from an insider’s perspective and first-hand sources developed over his twenty years as a writer and editor at Forbes, Pinkerton takes us to the ritualized formal lunches inside the mansion-like headquarters at 60 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; the lavish advertiser parties on board the family yacht, The Highlander; the sybaritic private life of Malcolm Forbes and the family’s increasing discomfort with its patriarch; and the glory days of the magazine, with its news-making stories, high-rolling expense accounts, and bar-setting standards for anyone who aspired to wealth and its trappings. But as the media business changed, Forbes was slow to react, and found itself burdened by Malcolm’s immense personal expenses, Steve Forbes’s bumbling, self-financed presidential campaigns, and the family’s hubris and hesitation in the face of reality. A series of devastating business decisions and an internecine struggle for power forced the sale of the Faberge eggs, the vintage toy collection, the homes, the private island, the yacht, and finally the sale of 40% of the company itself to outside investors…a collapse of shocking speed after decades of unsurpassed success.

A compelling narrative account of a powerful family’s dysfunction, The Fall of the House of Forbes is a parable of capitalism at its best and worst, and a metaphor for the current state of digital turmoil in media.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Former Forbes managing editor Pinkerton offers his view on the downfall of the iconic business journal founded by patriarch B.C. Forbes in 1917. His son Malcolm took full control of the "quaint, second-tier stock tip sheet” in 1964, and built it into an empire that crumbled under his son Steve's management. Steve's "hubris, greed, and poor judgment” led to the sale of family antiques and art collections, real estate, and a 40% share to an outside investor. Pinkerton, who was dismissed from Forbes in a cost-cutting move, states that this "isn't a 'tell-all' book,” or an "act of retribution,” yet an early discussion of Malcolm's sexual proclivities, and rumors surrounding his death and quick cremation that are not connected to the collapse, suggest otherwise. Pinkerton's journalistic credibility is at times assailed by an abundance of slang and discussions of his peers' idiosyncrasies, and physical appearances that render the exposé more sensational than essential. Photos. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Pinkerton's nearly 20 years at Forbes—the stalwart, almost iconic financial publication—affords him an insider's perspective on the magazine's rise and fall. Forbes was launched in 1917 by B.C. Forbes, a scrappy, ambitious Scottish immigrant who combined an innovative layout with content grounded in American capitalism. The Forbes family faced problems common for family-owned businesses—when not feuding among themselves, they tended to spend outrageous sums with little or no concern for the bottom line. It infected the company culture; employees frequently padded expense accounts or ignored soaring costs. Even more ominously, Forbes's presence on the Internet was all but ignored. Rounds of inevitable layoffs and cutbacks reduced the once-proud magazine to a much diminished presence with questionable long-term viability. VERDICT Although Pinkerton is a solid journalist who deftly chronicles the magazine's rise and fall, his finger-pointing seems at times to be less a search for truth than an opportunity to settle personal scores. Given how many family-owned media companies continue to publish, this is truly a compelling tale for our time. Recommended for all readers interested in media and journalism.—Richard S. Drezen, Brooklyn, NY

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Kirkus Reviews

A Forbes magazine insider explores the decline of the Forbes media brand and the family's wealth.

Pinkerton, former Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor and Forbes managing editor, arrived at the shortly after the death in 1990 of celebrity publisher/bon vivant Malcolm Forbes, son of the founder, B.C. Forbes. After an early chapter that focuses on the apparent bisexuality of Malcolm, the author spends the remainder of the combination memoir/family biography/commentary about journalism examining the rise and fall of the Forbes brand. Structured oddly, the narrative is often difficult to follow. Because Pinkerton reliesso heavily on anonymous sourcing to supplement his firsthand observations as an editor, the strongest portion of the book is the Forbes family history, based heavily in Scotland. Bertie Forbes, the patriarch, set sail for America in 1903, an unlikely prospect for magazine ownership and accumulation of great family wealth. But, in a variation of rags-to-riches sagas, he achieved success and passed it along to his children. The family saga told by Pinkerton gains momentum as he explains the successionafter Malcolm's death, during which Steve, the eldest of the four sons,emerged as the seeming favorite. The author's chronicle of the disagreements among the four sons makes for alternately tedious and interesting reading. None of them possessed a crystal ball, so the Forbes media properties, like so many others, began to suffer because of the Internet's influence on print publications. The empire has not quite collapsed,as the book's subtitle suggests, but it has been forever altered.

A sometimes insightful book that is too poorly organized and breezily written to live up to its potential.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312658595
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication date: 9/27/2011
Pages: 320
Sales rank: 352,496
Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

STEWART PINKERTON is former Managing Editor of Forbes Magazine and former Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal.

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