I wouldn't have done anything differently, Portfolio editor says

The only thing that Joanne Lipman would do differently would be to launch Portfolio magazine in a better economy. The editor of the business title which Condé Nast shut down on Monday told Newsweek (as part of a longer interview) that, despite the shutdown, she was optimistic about the future of the magazine business:

There is a real demand for information. And there's a need for people to understand what's happening in our world beyond the daily headlines and minute-to-minute headlines. Magazine cans provide that perspective and are a tactile experience that isn't as easily replicated on the Web as newspapers. Will technology evolve ... to have a device that could mimic the satisfying tactile experience? That would change the business model totally. Someone is going to figure out how to make it pay.

Asked when she thought that closing was inevitable, she said:

That point never came. Everyone at , all of our readers, everyone was rooting for us. There wasn't a sense of inevitability. We've all—everyone in print—been working in a difficult environment. There's an understanding that everyone in our industry faces: changing economic conditions and a changing media environment.

She said she felt that there was room in the marketplace for Portfolio, that it added something substantial to the mix of other business magazines:

Portfolio's DNA was to be smart, substantive and sexy. Our approach was always counterintuitive. If the story were conventional wisdom, we wouldn't write about it. We brought ambitious narrative journalism to a field that had often been seen as narrow. There was plenty of appetite for the material. It couldn't have been stronger. This is the story of the 21st century—business, finance and the economy.