Last of the Old-Style Media Moguls?

Richard Beckman says he’s not particularly fond of Mad Dog, a nickname he earned as a sales executive at Condé Nast, the magazine publisher where he spent 24 years. He finds it demeaning, and says it is belied by the fact that he is actually shy and quiet. In several meetings, he does display an almost theatrical delicacy in the way he speaks and gestures, rotating his wrists in the florid manner of a magician. But there is a note of canine aggression in his voice when he calls from Aspen on Friday, Mar. 18.