Ed Needham

{{Short description|Journalist}}

Ed Needham is an editor in journalism.

Salon.com, The Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times criticized Needham's 2002 appointment as editor of Rolling Stone as likely to end the high quality journalism for which the magazine was known and replace it with lad mag marketing from Needham's past magazines.{{cite web |last1=Elder |first1=Sean |title=The death of Rolling Stone |url=http://salon.com/ent/feature/2002/06/28/rollingstone/index.html |website=Salon |language=en |date=29 June 2002}}{{cite web |last1=Baum |first1=Geraldine |title=What Rolling Stone Hopes to Gather Next |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jun-17-lv-rolling17-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |date=17 June 2002}}{{cite web |last1=Wells |first1=Matt |title=Lose the words |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/jun/24/mondaymediasection5 |website=the Guardian |language=en |date=24 June 2002}}

The Hartford Courant remarked that Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner had great hopes for Needham.{{cite web |last1=Weiss |first1=Tara |title=CAN NEW EDITOR REVITALIZE OLD ROLLING STONE? |url=https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2002-06-14-0206141156-story.html |website=Hartford Courant |language=en |date=14 June 2002}}

Needham noted that magazine covers featuring women outsold those which featured men.{{cite web |last1=Goldstein |first1=Jessica M. |title=‘Reading the story today makes me cringe’: Female stars and the media machine of the early 2000s |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/britney-spears-lindsay-lohan-magazine-media-2000s/2021/03/02/46b4bf1c-76c5-11eb-9537-496158cc5fd9_story.html |website=Washington Post |date=2 March 2021}} For the November 14, 2002 issue of Rolling Stone he presented Christina Aguilera naked with a tag line calling her a pop princess with a dirty mind.{{cite web |title=2002 Rolling Stone Covers |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/2002-rolling-stone-covers-28916/rs-909-christina-aguilera-3-142929/ |website=Rolling Stone |date=12 May 2004}} A 2021 Washington Post retrospective of magazines remarked that this kind of portrayal was not common before or after that era of publishing.

Needham stayed with Rolling Stone for about a year, after which in 2004 he became editor of Maxim{{cite web |last1=Carlson |first1=Peter |title=How Does It Feel? |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/05/04/how-does-it-feel-span-classbankheadas-his-rock-magazine-hits-1000-issues-rolling-stones-jann-wenner-is-still-high-on-the-conceptspan/c6405efa-fc20-484c-9924-0380207706bb/ |website=Washington Post |date=4 May 2006}}{{cite web |last1=Carr |first1=David |title=A Top Rolling Stone Editor Is Lured to Maxim Magazine |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/business/a-top-rolling-stone-editor-is-lured-to-maxim-magazine.html |website=The New York Times |date=10 July 2004}}{{cite web |title=Maxim lures Rolling Stone's Needham as editor-in-chief |url=https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/maxim-lures-rolling-stones-needham-editor-in-chief/216481 |website=www.campaignlive.co.uk |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Peters |first1=Jeremy W. |title=A Magazine Back on a Roll |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/business/media/28stone.html |website=The New York Times |date=28 June 2010}}

Needham was the launch editor of Coach, a free health and fitness magazine for men, predominantly distributed in London. Dennis Publishing invested £3million in the title and although it achieved a circulation of 300,704 the magazine closed after 14 months.{{Cite news |last=Sweney |first=Mark |date=2015-10-06 |title=Dennis Publishing to launch free health and fitness magazine |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/06/dennis-publishing-to-launch-coach-free-health-and-fitness-magazine |access-date=2023-02-17 |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite web |last=Ponsford |first=Dominic |date=2016-05-11 |title=Latest entrant to growing free magazine market Coach celebrates first ABC of 300,000 |url=https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/magazines/latest-entrant-to-growing-free-magazine-market-coach-celebrates-first-abc-of-300000/ |access-date=2023-02-17 |website=Press Gazette |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Coach magazine to close |url=https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/coach-magazine-to-close-3750 |access-date=2023-02-17 |website=www.inpublishing.co.uk |language=en}}