He also argued that the amount of early tumult at Portfolio was on par with that of any launch. "In Condé Nast Traveler's first year, the entire design staff turned over and the executive editor left," said Wallace, who eventually became editor in chief of the title. "I came in January 1989 and soon after I got here, the managing editor and the features editor left. And then there were more changes."

Even then, said Wallace, "I don't remember anybody saying Sir Harry Evans [Traveler's then editor in chief] was a weak manager or a poor judge of talent."

Lipman herself talks about Portfolio as if she's oblivious to the chatter. First there were the reports about the constant turnover when Lipman's early hires defected, including deputy editor Jim Impoco. That began the countdown to when Lipman would be replaced (with one blogger suggesting Condé Nast replace Lipman with former Vanity Fair editor in chief Tina Brown). Then came the talk that the magazine's newsstand sales were soft — low even for a start-up that has yet to find a core audience. Reports speculated the magazine was losing $5 million a month.

But the pace of departures has since slowed. As for circulation, official numbers won't be available until the summer, but internal sources say newsstand sales are around 30,000 per issue, with a sell-through in the high teens. Wallace denied the $5 million figure, saying it was too high. As for the people who are counting the days until Lipman's dismissal, Wallace responded: "I hope they can count to a very high number."

Lipman dismisses reports of turmoil at the magazine as "noise."

"You have two phases in your launches. One where every single thing you do is brand new. That settles into an operating organization. We really have been up and operating with really excellent systems with the right group of people that have fun together and have excellent ideas. That has been true since the fall," Lipman said. Those staffers have included new managing editor Jacob Lewis, who joined from The New Yorker, and Dan Golden, senior editor, who joined from The Wall Street Journal.

Since the magazine has operated on a regular monthly schedule, the staff has seen fewer late nights and last-minute decisions. Also helpful was the recent decision by Lipman and the top editors to sketch out story ideas for the rest of the year, which makes planning future issues smoother. "We were working issue to issue for the first few issues. Now we're working on three at a time," said senior editor Kyle Pope. "It really clicked about a month ago, where we thought if we had to do this today, what would be the story lineup through the end of the year. We have the biggest backlog now than we've ever had."