NEW YORK, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Peter Kaplan, the editor who converted The New York Observer from covering community boards to covering the power elite, died Friday, his brother said.
Kaplan, who left the Observer in 2009 after 15 years at the helm, was 59. His brother, James, told The New York Times Kaplan died in Manhattan of cancer.
While the weekly Observer's circulation was about 50,000 when Kaplan was editor, its readers included many of New York's most powerful people, the Times said. The newspaper also had an effect on U.S. journalism as Kaplan's employees moved on to other publications, both print and online, in some cases founding them.
"It's hard to find a major publication right now, in print or online, that's not in some way flavored by the old Observer," The New Republic said in a 2012 profile of Kaplan. "Subtract Kaplan from the media landscape of the past 20 years and you lose The Awl, much of Gawker and a good bit of Politico, too."
The Observer, founded in 1987, specialized in very local coverage until Kaplan took the helm, the Times said. He left during a period of cutbacks.
In 1994, the year he started at the Observer, Kaplan hired Candace Bushnell to write a column that was given the title "Sex and the City." The column lasted two years, the HBO TV show considerably longer.
Kaplan was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. He was a stringer for Time as a Harvard undergraduate and went on to work for the Times as a television critic, for Manhattan Inc. magazine and for the "Charlie Rose Show" on PBS.
His most recent job was as editorial director for Fairchild Fashion Group, a division of Conde Nast.
