Jann Wenner

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Jann S. Wenner (born 7 January 1946 in New York City) is the owner of Wenner Media and the Publisher of several magazines, most prominently the pop music biweekly Rolling Stone.

1 Childhood
2 Rolling Stone
3 Other
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Childhood

Wenner's parents divorced when he was young and he was sent to a boarding school to live. There, his parents fought over a custody battle as no one wanted to keep him, something Wenner half-jokes about today. He graduated from high school at Chadwick School in 1964.

[edit] Rolling Stone

In 1967, Wenner founded Rolling Stone Magazine together with music critic Ralph J. Gleason in San Francisco with $7500 borrowed from his wife, Jane Wenner's family. Jane Wenner, although separated from Jann, still remains a Vice President at Wenner Media. Wenner stole a list of recording industry contacts ("a mailing list and a corporate name (Straight Arrow Publishing)" [1]) from a nearby radio station and began on his way to the top.

With an eye for talent, Wenner backed the careers of writers Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, and discovered photographer Annie Leibovitz, among many others who became icons of their professions. His falling out with writers were legendary, most famous of which would be the breakdown of his relationship with the rock critic Lester Bangs but many of Wenner's prodigies, such as the writer/director Cameron Crowe still credit him for giving them their biggest break. In the 1970s, Rolling Stone shifted its base of operations from San Francisco to New York City when Wenner befriended many celebrities, amongst them most famously Jacqueline Kennedy and John Lennon. This led to criticism of him being a starfucker[2].

Rolling Stone's circulation dipped briefly in the late 1970s/ early 1980s as Wenner's crew was slow to cover the emergence of punk rock and again in the 1990s, when the middle-aged magazine lost ground to Spin Magazine and Blender in coverage of hip-hop. Wenner hired former FHM editor Ed Needham, who was then replaced by Will Dana to turn his flagship magazine around, and by 2006, Rolling Stone's circulation was at an all-high of 1.5 million copies sold every fortnight. In May 2006, Rolling Stone published its 1000th edition.

Wenner has also had a hand in the writing of many of Rolling Stone's famous profiles. More recently however, his writing has been politcally-centred, he covered Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry for RS during their election campaigns and in November 2005 had a major interview with U2 rockstar Bono which glossed over music and politics. The November 3 article went on to win many journalism awards that year.

Rolling Stone and Jann Wenner are chronicalized in two books, Gone Crazy and Back Again as well as An Uncensored History of Rolling Stone Magazine. Former Rolling Stone journalist and Wenner protege David Weir is working on a biography. ^[1]

[edit] Other

Wenner is also the publisher of Us, a celebrity magazine, and Men's Journal, a fitness magazine. He is currently married and has three children, although in the 1990s it was reported that he had moved in with fashion designer Matt Nye. It has also been reported that he and Matt Nye just had a baby boy together via surrogate, Noah Jaspar Nye Wenner [3].

In the mid 1990s, Wenner was offered a chance by Marc Andreessen to invest in Netscape but turned it down.

In 1985, he appeared in the movie Perfect with Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta. He also had a cameo role in Cameron Crowe's 2000 movie Almost Famous.

In 2005, Wenner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement category. He is also the founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.