NO MOSS

Is Rolling Stone rolling again? Some people are looking at last week’s resignation of music editor Keith Moerer--after less than a year on the job and just weeks after the firing of his second-in-command, Jim DeRogatis--as a signal that the magazine will reevaluate and perhaps revamp its music coverage. Moerer’s hiring from Request magazine, a rare case of Rolling Stone not promoting from within, seemed to push the music coverage to a more “cutting-edge” emphasis.

“We will not be changing what we cover,” says managing editor Sid Holt, who will for the time being oversee the music department with help from senior music editors Mark Kemp and David Fricke, the previous music editor. “But we will take a good hard look at what we’re doing and how we go about it. I enjoyed working with Keith and he made some great contributions and we’re not going to pretend the changes that were made didn’t happen and backslide.”

Rumors are already rampant about a successor, though, with speculation falling on Kemp, the former Option magazine editor and a runner-up to Moerer for the music editor job last year, and former Rolling Stone reviews editor Anthony DeCurtis, who left RS last year to work at VH1, but recently quit the music channel.