Soap Opera Weekly Editor Carolyn Hinsey Fired
Breaking: Carolyn Hinsey, editor of Soap Opera Weekly and Soap Opera Digest, was just fired, we're told. Hinsey is described to us as "a truly malicious, horrible human being." If true, then more of you must have stories!
Update: "Budgetary" reasons is one excuse being thrown around, which would mean SOW would have to replace Hinsey with somebody less experienced (read: cheaper) for that to pan out. Other possibilities for her removal? Numerous HR problems and complaints about Hinsey, who's said to be "a yeller and screamer" and a "bully." "Anger management classes were mentioned several years ago," says one well-informed source.
An Outpouring of Ridicule for Fired Soap Opera Weekly Editor Carolyn Hinsey
When Jossip broke the news yesterday that publisher Source Interlink had fired editor Carolyn Hinsey from its Soap Opera Weekly and Soap Opera Digest magazines, we had it on good authority that Hinsey was not the most well-liked person in the daytime business. But we had no idea her wrath, sense of entitlement, and questionable journalism had affected so many people that they would take the item - brilliantly commenting under soap opera-esque names - and vent their years of frustration with the "tyrant." Two hundred comments later, we selected the best of the rants:
• I can tell you that YEARS ago when I was a publicist for a NY-based ABC soap, we literally laughed so hard at carolyn's antics that we'd be practically on the floor. She really DID think Randy Mantooth wanted her! She used to sail in and out of here like she was michael eisner, telling us who we could and could not work with (meaning the other 5 or so soap mags that were in existence a decade ago). Unfortunately, the higher ups always caved in to her and leahy for fear of losing coverage in their rag. Too little too late with this firing, but i guess better than nothing. [link]
• It couldn't have happened to a bigger @$$!@! So happy to know that even if Carolyn is reading this from home (whilst she still can pay the electric bill) that she's probably starting to get a glimmer of the idea that her entire reason for being is kaput. No more set visits, no more faux-famous friends, no more unlimited expenses or soap star parties at her bar in NYC. Just a long, long, miserable existence of depression, rage, bitterness and (gulp!) weight gain!!! But stock in McDonald's cause girlfriend is about to hit that chain HARD! [link]
• Trust me, this woman was EVIL. 15 years ago when i was just starting out as a writer I was interviewed by carolyn and lynne for a job and they suggested
that perhaps, since i was so new to writing for soap mags (freelance at the time) that i should 'pitch' them 15-20 story ideas for the mag so they
could get a sense of my knowledge of the genre. I did just that, and never heard back. I called to follow up but my one call to each of them was never
returned so i just sent a thank you note for the meeting and moved on. THREE WEEKS LATER TWO OF THOSE FULLY-FLESHED OUT STORY IDEAS RAN IN THE MAGAZINE
WITHOUT MY BYLINE. As the weeks passed TWELVE of the twenty stories i pitched ran in the mag. When i called again and got carolyn on the phone i said, VERY
NICELY, "i just wanted to follow-up because obviously you liked my ideas because they ran in the magazine so is there any chance i could freelance for
you in the future?" She FLIPPED out and said I was implying i was going to sue them and that "i'd just burned every bridge in the soap
industry" a few years later, i was covering a CHARITY event for another magazine and carolyn had me and several other rival mag reporters ejected from
the event so SOD had an exclusive. It was insane. She got away with MURDER and the whole industry let her. Good riddance you monster!!!! 
[link]
• Carolyn Hinsey is pathetic and one of life's great losers. She's a tyrant, a bully and a @$$!@, except bitches have style so she's not even that, she's lower. She is VERY aware of what readers, executives, actors, press departments and the like think of her and deep down, she's a wreck. She lives a fake life, believing that she can create an image of power and success that will buffer her against the harsher realities of her existence. She is a deeply unhappy woman, SOD/SOW was her life and with her ouster from these publications one gets the sense that Ms Hinsey's life, essentially, is over as well. What has she got? Not a damn thing, that's what. And that's all she deserves!
My bet, however, is that she might just land on her (swollen) feet at SoapNet's website or at ABC in some capacity. CBS and NBC can't be bothered with her and she always was partial to Brian Frons' lot. Time will tell but thankfully Hinsey won't ever have the kind of power she used to wield! Off with her head! [link]
And here's two of particular interest - because it ties the Hinsey saga to a one Leslie Sloane Zelnik, the sometimes Lindsay Lohan publicist whose sister Stephanie ranked up there at Soap Opera Digest as the most-hated:
• I agree with every negative thing said about carolyn and lynne, but you've all left the third corner of their sinister triangle out of the mix:
STEPHANIE SLOANE! She was right up there with the two of them playing good cop to the hilt. She'd be sweet as pie but only too happy to watch carolyn
bust the proverbial kneecaps of a colleague. And talk about conflicts of interest, does anyone remember the INSANELY FAWNING coverage Tom Eplin used to
garner in digest while he was dating sloane??? It was ridiculous. I wonder who will win in the fight to stay a 'good cop' now that carolyn's gone
and one of them will have to take the 'bad cop' role she vacated. That should be interesting!!!
And to every spineless weasel who has posted something along the lines of "well, carolyn was always nice to me…" let's be real - you obviously
SAW/HEARD how she treated others so how could you just turn a blind eye because she wasn't aiming her wrath at you! There were LOTS of people like that
in nazi germany who didn't care what happened to the jews so long as it wasn't happening to them. Sorry for the holocaust analogy but it does fit.
from here
I bet her coworkers were out
partying big time when they heard the news!
It's
almost Devil wears Prada-esque, no?
But, it's all so interesting to read.
