Patrick McCarthy (June 6, 1951 – February 24, 2019) was chairman and editorial director of '' W'' magazine and ''

Women's Wear Daily ''Women's Wear Daily'' (also known as ''WWD'') is a fashion-industry trade journal often referred to as the "Bible of fashion".Horyn, Cathy"Breaking Fashion News With a Provocative Edge" ''The New York Times''. (August 20, 1999). It provides infor ...

'' (WWD). Born in

Dedham, Massachusetts Dedham ( ) is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 25,364 at the 2020 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest b ...

, he graduated from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

as an undergraduate and from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

's graduate journalism school in 1973 then began his career at

Fairchild Publications Fairchild Media is a publisher of fashion trade magazines, websites, and conferences for the fashion, retail and beauty industries. Fairchild Media brands include ''Women’s Wear Daily'', ''Footwear News'' (FN), ''Beauty Inc'', ''M'' and ''Fairch ...

at WWD in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. When Fairchild retired in 1997, he selected McCarthy as his successor in the roles of chairman and editorial director. McCarthy spent his entire professional life with the company, seeing it through its first acquisition by

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and then its 1999 sale to

Condé Nast Condé Nast () is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast, and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The company's media ...

.Patrick McCarthy biography
mgross.com; accessed February 26, 2019. McCarthy died on February 24, 2019, aged 67, following a short illness. He is survived by a sister and three nieces.

Quotes

McCarthy told Michael Gross in a

New York magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...

cover article, "No one else could get the story, and if anyone else got the story, someone had to pay! You can't make The New York Times pay, so make the poor little designer pay — or the big rich designer. Mr. Fairchild instilled it in me. I'm like the abused child that is now abusing. I will kill for the story, and if I don't have it, I will get angry. A lot of the punishment meted out was for giving the story to someone else, which to us wasn't arbitrary” said McCarthy. When asked whether some punishments were arbitrary, McCarthy told Gross, “Absolutely. Bite the hand that feeds you. Never stop biting it. And you know what? It will feed you more."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCarthy, Patrick 1951 births 2019 deaths Businesspeople from Boston Businesspeople from Dedham, Massachusetts American publishers (people) American magazine editors Stanford University alumni Boston University alumni 20th-century American businesspeople