The Business of Magazines

[reesewu]

I feel like I’ve read the same kind of article before. I’m not a fan of Anna either but at this point, any hit piece directed at her in an attempt to take her down is an urban legend that can only be told not realized.

 

[mepps]

Drag her to hell.

 

[Benn98]

That is a hit piece if I ever saw one! I mean how is that NYTIMES? It reads like Daily Mail, that article doesn't know what it wants to be!! Can't wait until Wintour is gone, and she has certainly fostered bad working evniroment for POC at Conde Nast (NOT just Vogue), but how is it all her fault? There are people above her, and even after reading that super long article, it just feels like a forced attempt to push her out. It won't work!

It's very clearly a hit piece and a shoddy one at that. This writer belongs at The Sun.
I also agree that she should go, but NYTrash couldn't keep the same energy for Glenda, Nina and the rest? At least Anna has been showing that she's willing to adapt over the past few months. Plus she installed Joyce Chang, Eva Chen, and Michelle Lee in EIC positions at a time when nobody was focused on diversity behind the scenes. Compare that to Glenda who had the worst diversity on her covers and her crew were even worse right until her last issue. And all of that went down without so much as a peep from NYT. Nina only stepped it up for September, but show us the black talent that she's been nurturing since the protests started? Instead, she's got Gan, which I mean, need I go further?
But more importantly, nobody is holding ALT accountable considering he held a powerful position at Vogue and Numero. Well, only Stephen Sackur from BBC Hardtalk pressed him about the fact that he did very little to champion or address black issues.

That article is filled with a lot of he said/she said claims, but one very obvious blunder is Elaine W's statement. I actually like her but she's wrong when she references her shared TeenVogue EIC position with “Would any of it have gone down this way if I were a White man?”. Actually, the person you shared the position with was a white man named Phillip Picardi.
Of course this 'writer' couldn't be asked to do any research. I'd be shocked if he's familiar with the American fashion industry.

 

[Marc10]

From how they framed the article I was expecting some bombastic exposé of Anna being overtly racist or something... but the main story is really that the Vogue staff is overwhelmingly white and upper class, which really didn't warrant for a NTY investigation lol It's pretty meatless, it kinda feels like the journalist was digging for some big scandal but didn't get what he wanted so he had to pump it up what he had.

Not to downplay that issue of lack of diversity in the staff tho. It's definitely something that needs to change not just at Vogue but in pretty much all industries. But if this was supposed to be a takedown on Anna, not sure if it will do the job.

 

[Lola701]

The problem with this kind of article....It makes me wonder how many POC or black people are in higher positions at the NYT.
My main issue is that people are making an "Anna" thing what is in fact an "Industry thing" and even further...A corporation thing. That's what is lacking in all those articles....

While Wintour is part of the problem, I wonder if people are naive enough to think that removing her means that everything will be better.

The real people hurt by this article are in fact Phyllis and Grace.
Anna’s reputation has been bad since at least 1984. At this point, she is a teflon.

 

[tigerrouge]

I can't access the article - but there never seems to be much talk about the people who employ Anna Wintour, who seem to have been perfectly happy with how the magazine has been run all these decades - and are probably equally happy that she's still around to take all the flak, until they cast her off like a snake with its skin, and when she goes, they'll pretend all that nasty business of racism has been sorted... while nothing changes behind closed doors at the top.

 

[velvetandsilk]

The problem with this kind of article....It makes me wonder how many POC or black people are in higher positions at the NYT.
My main issue is that people are making an "Anna" thing what is in fact an "Industry thing" and even further...A corporation thing. That's what is lacking in all those articles....

People who write this kind of article ignore character of fashion magazine working conditions, staff and history. Working in fashion magazine alyways was hobby for rich women, they never paid good money. Today only EIC has good salary. Anna could working becouse inherite money to her family. Other staff could moonlight in fashion house and ad market.

I can't access the article - but there never seems to be much talk about the people who employ Anna Wintour.

Without her father (UK and he devise her career, when she was young she didn't know what she wanted to do in the future) and ex-boyfirend (USA) connection she never worked in fashion world. Nobody employ girl which was expel from school and only like partying/ pick up oldder men, but Anna is a very clever person. She knows when should be nice and who is important.

 

[mikel]

I can't access the article - but there never seems to be much talk about the people who employ Anna Wintour, who seem to have been perfectly happy with how the magazine has been run all these decades - and are probably equally happy that she's still around to take all the flak, until they cast her off like a snake with its skin, and when she goes, they'll pretend all that nasty business of racism has been sorted... while nothing changes behind closed doors at the top.

If you are interested, there’s a good summary over at Jezebel:

New Exposé Details How Anna Wintour Has 'Sidelined and Tokenized' Black Women at Vogue

 

[MON]

Anna is part of the problem; a problem which she inherited.

If NYT wanted change, stop isolating Anna for clickbait, and start addressing the real issue - that the lack of diversity is INDUSTRY WIDE.

NYT better make sure that their Editorial board and staff are diverse otherwise this is just noise.

I'd be more interested in reading how diverse the present Congressional staff is, or how diverse the present Democratic Party is, rather than this hit piece that not only lacks originality, but substance as well.

How easy it is to blame it on the woman, but hold the countless men who enabled her to no account. This is the nth hit piece against Anna, but none for Roger Lynch, Sanjay Bhakta, Stan Duncan, Mike Goss, Jonathan Newhouse +++

 

[Flamingjune]

Here is the full article!

The White Issue: Has Anna Wintour’s Diversity Push Come Too Late?
Vogue’s September issue celebrated Black culture and contributors. But some employees say the magazine’s powerful editor fostered a workplace that sidelined women of color.
By Edmund Lee

Published Oct. 24, 2020Updated Oct. 25, 2020, 12:19 p.m. ET

Condé Nast says that 42 percent of its editors in chief are now people of color, all of them put in place by Ms. Wintour. “Undoubtedly, I have made mistakes along the way,” she said, “and if any mistakes were made at Vogue under my watch, they are mine to own and remedy and I am committed to doing the work.”Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times
Condé Nast says that 42 percent of its editors in chief are now people of color, all of them put in place by Ms. Wintour. “Undoubtedly, I have made mistakes along the way,” she said, “and if any mistakes were made at Vogue under my watch, they are mine to own and remedy and I am committed to doing the work.”Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times

Vogue’s September issue was different this year. Anna Wintour and her staff put it together when more than 15 million people were marching in Black Lives Matter protests nationwide and employees at Vogue’s parent company, Condé Nast, were publicly calling out what they viewed as racism in their own workplace. At 316 pages, the issue, titled “Hope,” featured a majority of Black artists, models and photographers, a first for the magazine.

For members of Vogue’s editorial team, the September edition came in the uneasy wake of an internal email Ms. Wintour had sent on June 4. “I want to say plainly that I know Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators,” wrote Ms. Wintour, the Vogue editor in chief since 1988 and Condé Nast’s artistic director since 2013, making her the editorial leader of all its titles. “We have made mistakes, too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes.”

Black editors who have worked with Ms. Wintour said they saw her apology as hypocritical, part of a calculated play by an executive known for her ability to gauge the public mood. Other Black journalists who are current or former employees of Condé Nast said the email and the September issue that followed it represented an awkward, though heartfelt, attempt at genuine change.

More than any other institution, Vogue has defined fashion and beauty for generations of women, and the runway looks encouraged by the London-born Ms. Wintour, 70, have trickled down from haute couture houses to fast-fashion retailers and into the hands of everyday consumers. From Manhattan to Hollywood and beyond, she has helped set a standard that has favored white, Eurocentric notions of beauty.

Ms. Wintour in 2010 with many of her top lieutenants. Phyllis Posnick and Grace Coddington are third and second from right, respectively.Will Ragozzino/Getty Images
The rare magazine editor who is known outside the publishing industry, Ms. Wintour — she is simply “Anna” to those in the know, or those who want to be — has become a singular cultural figure. After establishing herself in fashion, media and entertainment in the first part of a career that stretches to the 1970s, she has more recently become a political power player as a bundler for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And as the orchestrator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute benefit, better known as the Met Gala, she has transformed an affair for Manhattan’s society set into a full-blown East Coast Oscars, with luminaries from fashion, music, movies and sports on the Anna-controlled guest list.

As Ms. Wintour ascended, Vogue’s publication of “hurtful or intolerant” content rarely resulted in lasting negative attention for her. But Black journalists who have worked with Ms. Wintour, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said they had not gotten over their experiences at a magazine whose workplace mirrored its exclusive pages.

Under Ms. Wintour, 18 people said, Vogue welcomed a certain type of employee — someone who is thin and white, typically from a wealthy family and educated at elite schools. Of the 18, 11 people said that, in their view, Ms. Wintour should no longer be in charge of Vogue and should give up her post as Condé Nast’s editorial leader.

“Fashion is bitchy,” one former Black staff member said. “It’s hard. This is the way it’s supposed to be. But at Vogue, when we’d evaluate a shoot or a look, we’d say ‘That’s Vogue,’ or, ‘That’s not Vogue,’ and what that really meant was ‘thin, rich and white.’ How do you work in that environment?”

Many of the people interviewed for this article said the racism they encountered was usually subtle, but sometimes blunt. Their main accusation was that Ms. Wintour created a work environment — and there is no facet of Vogue that she does not control — that sidelined and tokenized women of color, especially Black women.

Many Black people who worked for her said they felt so out of place in Ms. Wintour’s domain that they created white alter egos — two used the term “doppelgänger” — just to get through the workday, reconditioning their presentation and dress in a way that was mentally draining.

Some Black editors did not want to comment on the experience of fellow colleagues, but offered another view. Lindsay Peoples Wagner, the editor of Teen Vogue since 2018, said she had experienced uncomfortable moments in the industry but that Ms. Wintour “has given me opportunities in leadership, and I’ve made inclusivity a deep part of the conversations we’re having.”

Three other people of color said Condé Nast had made positive changes and Ms. Wintour had promoted them to top roles. Naomi Campbell, one of the first Black supermodels, who was on the cover of Ms. Wintour’s first September issue in 1989, vehemently defended the editor.

Naomi Campbell on the cover of the September 1989 issue of Vogue.Condé Nast
“The first cover try I ever did, I had no idea she had to fight for me,” Ms. Campbell said. “She’s been a very important factor in my career and my life and has been honest about what she can do and what she cannot.”

The recent tumult at Condé Nast has knocked Ms. Wintour off balance. Inspired by the protests that arose after the police killing of George Floyd in May, employees have confronted their bosses at companywide meetings and in smaller gatherings. Their complaints have led to the resignations of key editors and pledges from the chief executive, Roger Lynch, and Ms. Wintour herself, to revamp Condé Nast’s hiring practices.

“I strongly believe that the most important thing any of us can do in our work is to provide opportunities for those who may not have had access to them,” Ms. Wintour said in an emailed statement. “Undoubtedly, I have made mistakes along the way, and if any mistakes were made at Vogue under my watch, they are mine to own and remedy and I am committed to doing the work.”

Devoting the September issue — the most important of Vogue’s year — to Black contributors indicates Ms. Wintour grasps the intensity of the protest movement roiling the country. But in fashion, of course, appearances are paramount. During a large Condé Nast meeting on race in June, Ms. Wintour — who is the head of the company’s diversity and inclusion council — was conspicuously absent. Employees exchanged Slack and text messages during the session, asking the same question: “Where’s Anna?”

‘Well I honestly don’t think that’s a big deal’
Long before Condé Nast employees went public with complaints about the company’s handling of race, Ms. Wintour has been criticized for Vogue’s portrayals of Black people.

For many readers, a 2008 cover of LeBron James and Gisele Bündchen was reminiscent of racist images of Black men from a century ago. The basketball star is bellowing and gripping the supermodel around the waist, and some saw an unmistakable parallel to a racist World War I propaganda poster. Ms. Wintour also drew criticism when she helped the fashion designer John Galliano, who was fired from Christian Dior in 2011 after he was caught on camera making anti-Semitic remarks and declaring, “I love Hitler.” She continued to support Mr. Galliano even after he was found guilty of a hate crime by a Paris court.

Being indisputably the most important magazine in fashion means Vogue comes in for extra scrutiny — especially in its cover selections. Last year, The Pudding, a publisher of visual essays, used algorithms to analyze 19 years of the Vogue archives and measure the average “lightness” of cover models’ skin tones. In one span, from 2000 to 2005, only three of 81 women were Black. In a statement, Condé Nast said that from 2017 to 2020, 32 percent of Vogue covers featured Black women.

Former Vogue employees said that in recent years, Ms. Wintour has not kept pace with the public’s changing attitudes on issues of racism and discrimination. At a London fashion week party hosted by Burberry in February 2017, the reality TV star Kendall Jenner showed up with a new look: fake gold teeth. Vogue noted the choice in a breezy online story written by a white contributor: “The flashing teeth felt like a playful wink to the city’s free-spirited aesthetic — or perhaps a proverbial kiss to her rumored boyfriend, A$AP Rocky.”

A Black staff member contacted one of the magazine’s executives to object, saying the story insensitively endorsed an instance of cultural appropriation, according to emails obtained by The New York Times. Other staff members brought the article to Ms. Wintour’s attention, with one lieutenant explaining by email why some people on staff and on social media had reacted negatively: “If Kendall wants to do something stupid fine but our writers (especially white ones) don’t need to weigh in and glorify it or ascribe reasons to it that read culturally insensitive.”

Kendall Jenner at London fashion week in 2017. When the magazine described her fake gold teeth as “a playful wink,” some staff members complained to Vogue executives that the fashion choice was an example of cultural appropriation.Backgrid
Ms. Wintour appeared not to grasp the issue. After several exchanges, she wrote: “Well I honestly don’t think that’s a big deal.”

Condé Nast said in a statement: “The coverage itself is not cultural appropriation.”

Vogue’s content has, though, been accused of being exactly that. The March 2017 issue showcased Karlie Kloss, a white model, in a geisha outfit, with her face in pale makeup and her hair dyed black — a blatant form of yellowface. Readers condemned the layout, which was shot in Japan by Mikael Jansson and included a photograph of Ms. Kloss with a sumo wrestler. New York Magazine’s fashion site The Cut was among the many critics, writing: “One thing’s for certain: Embracing diversity does not mean styling Karlie Kloss as a geisha.”

In a 2017 edition of the magazine, Karlie Kloss appeared as a geisha. She later apologized.Mikael Jansson
A Condé Nast human resources executive in charge of the company’s diversity program fielded numerous complaints, and alerted Ms. Wintour. According to three people with direct knowledge of the exchange, Ms. Wintour responded that she took full responsibility, but added the feature could not have been cut because of its “enormous expense.”

After an online outcry, Ms. Kloss issued an apology on Twitter: “These images appropriate a culture that is not my own and I am truly sorry for participating in a shoot that was not culturally sensitive.”

The tweet angered Ms. Wintour, according to the three people, and Ms. Kloss sent a note in an effort to mollify her. “I imagine the feeling is mutual, that it was hurtful to see the criticism from our Japan trip,” the model wrote. “I had written a short piece on social media as I wanted to make known that it was never my intention to offend or upset anyone from this spread.”

Ms. Wintour’s reply the following day was icy: “Thanks Karlie another time please give us a heads up if you are writing about a Vogue issue.” (Ms. Kloss has continued to appear in the magazine’s pages.)

In the fall of 2017, there was yet another awkward exchange on race between Ms. Wintour and Vogue staff members. It concerned a photo shoot by Patrick Demarchelier that showed several dark-skinned Black models wearing head scarves.

As Ms. Wintour weighed whether to publish the images, she asked an employee by email if they might be misconstrued as racist. But she flubbed the attempt, using a dated, offensive term: “Don’t mean to use an inappropriate word, but pica ninny came to mind,” Ms. Wintour wrote.

A 2017 photo shoot by Patrick Demarchelier showed several dark-skinned Black models wearing head scarves. Ms. Wintour asked an employee if the images seemed racist: “Don’t mean to use an inappropriate word, but pica ninny came to mind.”Patrick Demarchelier
In a statement, Ms. Wintour said: “I was trying both to express my concern for how our readers could have interpreted a photo and raise the issue for discussion, and I used a term that was offensive. And for that, I truly apologize.”

In the 2017 email, Ms. Wintour requested that a specific Black staff member evaluate the photo shoot. The employee, an assistant, told her superiors that the work was fine. The real problem, she continued, according to several people familiar with the meeting, was why a low-ranked person such as herself had been asked to assess it. The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.

‘A colonial broad’

“Dame Anna Wintour is a colonial broad. She’s part of an environment of colonialism,” said André Leon Talley, a former editor at Vogue, as he promoted a memoir about his time in the fashion industry. “She is entitled and I do not think she will ever let anything get in the way of her white privilege.”George Etheredge for The New York Times
For Ms. Wintour, who descends from British nobility and was recently made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the pace of the current moment of protest may be a challenge. But she is also the daughter of a London newspaper editor and has made a career out of anticipating and responding adroitly to cultural trends.

In 2016, Ms. Wintour made a change to her pool of assistants. (She had three aides for many years, but more recently has had two.) That year, according to three Condé Nast employees, she told the company’s human resources department that her next assistant should be Black. Eventually, most of her assistants were people of color, the people said. The job is highly sought after, a steppingstone to bigger roles in fashion and media, but because it is low-paying, it usually goes to women from wealthy families. The sight of Ms. Wintour’s new adjutants made for a vivid contrast with the usual Vogue hires.

In 2017, Ms. Wintour was part of the small committee that decided to replace the departing Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter with Radhika Jones, the editorial director of the books department at The Times, making her one of the few top editors of color in Condé Nast’s history. Ms. Wintour has since championed Ms. Jones against in-house naysayers who complained that she had featured too many people of color in Vanity Fair. “My experiences with Anna have been nothing but positive,” Ms. Jones said. “She’s supportive of my vision and she understands what I’ve been trying to achieve and she has helped me to achieve it.”

Ms. Wintour promoted Chioma Nnadi, the magazine’s fashion editor, to oversee Vogue.com.Acielle Tanbetova for The New York Times
Last month, Ms. Wintour replaced Stuart Emmrich, a former Styles editor at The Times, as the editor of the Vogue website with Chioma Nnadi, a Black woman who had been the magazine’s fashion director. And in August, Ms. Wintour was instrumental in the hiring of the superstar book executive Dawn Davis, who is Black, as the editor of Bon Appétit. (She replaced Adam Rapoport, who resigned under pressure in June after staff members accused him of running a discriminatory workplace.)

In a statement, Condé Nast said that 42 percent of its editors in chief were now people of color — all of them put in place by Ms. Wintour — and that all photo shoots are ultimately overseen by Raúl Martinez, the corporate creative director, who is the son of Cuban émigrés.

Some of Ms. Wintour’s relationships with Black editors have been rocky. André Leon Talley, a fashion titan, was one of Vogue’s most recognized personalities, often seated beside Ms. Wintour in the front row at runway shows in Paris, Milan and New York. She lavished professional and financial support on Mr. Talley, but the two had a falling-out, and he left the magazine in 2013.

This year, he published a memoir, “The Chiffon Trenches,” which reads in part as a scathing takedown of the fashion industry for its whiteness. During a promotional interview, a podcaster asked Mr. Talley about Ms. Wintour’s apology for Vogue’s “hurtful or intolerant” content. “Dame Anna Wintour is a colonial broad,” Mr. Talley replied. “She’s part of an environment of colonialism. She is entitled and I do not think she will ever let anything get in the way of her white privilege.”

Ms. Wintour and Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue, in London last year.Will Oliver/EPA, via Shutterstock
Edward Enninful, a Black editor at Condé Nast who has led British Vogue since 2017, is among the next generation of Condé Nast leaders, and is often mentioned as Ms. Wintour’s potential successor at the magazine’s American flagship. The two are said to have a difficult working relationship, according to people in New York and London who have directly observed their dynamic. (In July, Mr. Enninful said that a security guard at Condé Nast’s London office racially profiled him, telling him to “use the loading bay.” Mr. Enninful described the incident on Instagram, writing “Change needs to happen now.” Condé Nast dismissed the guard, he said, and the post has since been deleted.)

When Ms. Wintour promoted Elaine Welteroth, a Black woman, to a top position at Teen Vogue in 2016, the appointment was heralded as a step forward for diversity. But the promotion was fraught, Ms. Welteroth wrote in her 2019 memoir, “More Than Enough.” Instead of running Teen Vogue herself, as the editor in chief, she was given a more ambiguous title, “editor,” and was asked to split leadership of the publication with two others. Ms. Welteroth felt that the structure effectively sidelined her, giving her less power than that of the previous Teen Vogue boss, Amy Astley. (A year after her appointment, Ms. Welteroth was named editor in chief. She left Condé Nast in 2018.)

“Would any of it have gone down this way if I were a White man?” Ms. Welteroth wrote.

A summer of discontent
The killing of Mr. Floyd sparked difficult discussions about race and diversity in magazines and newspapers across the country, including at The Times. Employees everywhere have become more vocal about what they see as racist attitudes in the workplace.

At Condé Nast, Bon Appétit, a rising profit center thanks in part to its popular cooking videos, has been the red-hot center of dissent in recent months, with many of its staff members quitting in protest. Before the hiring of Ms. Davis to lead the magazine, Ms. Wintour watched closely over its editorial operations, people who worked at the property said.

At the time, people of color who had been featured in the videos complained that they were paid less than their white colleagues and that Bon Appétit had whitewashed their recipes — a trend in food journalism where ethnic cuisines are recast from a white perspective. Readers flooded the comments section of Bon Appétit’s Instagram account with messages of support for those who complained.

In a post to Bon Appétit’s account, Priya Krishna, a freelancer who had accusedCondé Nast of unequal pay, was quoted as saying: “I have been forced to think outside of myself and my identity my entire career. So why can’t white editors change their mindset now?”

Ms. Wintour asked to have the item removed, according to internal Condé Nast Slack messages. But by the time of her request, the Krishna post had been online for hours, and Ms. Wintour was warned that deleting it would only attract more attention. The social media team suggested posting new content that would push the item down in users’ feeds. Ms. Wintour approved the plan, according to two people involved in the discussion.

Marcus Samuelsson, a celebrity chef who signed a one-year agreement with Condé Nast as a Bon Appétit consultant, said the company’s history with diversity “was challenging,” but he added that Ms. Wintour had worked to create more inclusivity. “She championed it from Day 1,” he said.

Many people who have worked at Vogue or with Ms. Wintour said that despite her moves toward a more diverse staff, she was still responsible for a hostile workplace. They singled out two of Ms. Wintour’s best known lieutenants: Phyllis Posnick, a Vogue editor who styled the 2017 geisha and head scarf shoots, and Grace Coddington, another fixture at the magazine.

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, as staff members were despondent that Mrs. Clinton had lost to Donald J. Trump, Ms. Posnick said, in a voice that three people could hear, “I knew this was going to happen. It’s all the Blacks’ fault. They didn’t vote.” The next year, when Rihanna showed up late for Vogue’s annual fashion conference — hardly an unusual occurrence for a musician — two people heard Ms. Coddington say, “Black people are late everywhere.”

In a statement, Ms. Posnick, 78, denied making the comment. “I have never and would never say something like this for the simple fact that I don’t believe it,” she said. Ms. Coddington, 79, also disputed that she had made the Rihanna remark: “Why would I say that when I am perennially late myself?”

Grace Coddington at her home in 2016. Behind her is the collection of “*****” figurines.Leslie Kirchhoff
Ms. Coddington is perhaps the second-most visible figure of the Wintour era at Vogue, having stolen multiple scenes in “The September Issue,” a popular 2009 documentary about the magazine. In 2016, the year she switched her Vogue status from employee to freelancer, Ms. Coddington was photographed in her Manhattan kitchen, with a shelf of racist “*****” figurines clearly visible in the background. The collection was roundly criticized.

In a statement, Condé Nast noted that Ms. Posnick and Ms. Coddington no longer contributed to the magazine.

‘Condé Nasty’

Condé Nast headquarters in New York. For years, Vogue welcomed a certain type of employee — typically white and from a wealthy family. Now, 42 percent of the company’s editors in chief are people of color.Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
To work at Vogue is to inhabit a kind of prep school dormitory where relationships are defined by family ties and social connections that span generations. For many younger people of color who came from less rarefied backgrounds, gaining a toehold was considerably more difficult.

Condé Nast assistants famously put up with grueling hours and humiliating tasks, a job satirized in “The Devil Wears Prada,” a best-selling novel by a former Wintour assistant and later a hit movie starring Meryl Streep as the demanding boss. The hazing is seen as a rite of passage, part of why the company has the nickname “Condé Nasty.” And while Black staff members acknowledge all that, they said that race complicates matters.

Black employees are often asked to participate, or merely show up for, high-level meetings — a corporate practice known as fronting, six people interviewed for this article said. At Vogue, they have been asked to weigh in on cover images or take part in discussions with advertisers, forums that do not typically call on junior employees.

In a statement, Condé Nast said, “Anna and Vogue and all the leaders at our brands have made concerted efforts to build inclusion into all we do every day.”

In 2016, the actress Lupita Nyong’o showed up at Vogue’s office at One World Trade in Lower Manhattan to discuss a planned photo shoot. Ms. Nyong’o sat down with top editors, who had proposed photographing her in her home country, Kenya, along with some family members. The accompanying article would also focus on her family.

Ms. Nyong’o expressed concern about how her family would be portrayed, saying she feared they might come across as cultural props, according to several people with knowledge of the meeting. After a long pause, a junior editor — the only Black staff member in the room — piped up. Addressing the actress, she suggested that the shoot would be an opportunity to showcase Africa, a rarity in any American magazine, let alone Vogue.

The shoot was a go. And the junior editor was never asked to attend a fashion meeting again.

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[TZ001]

I thought they had more concrete evidence rather than ‘I heard some people said’

 

[axiomatic]

Of course this 'writer' couldn't be asked to do any research. I'd be shocked if he's familiar with the American fashion industry.

He's the former fashion features editor at WWD and has worked at notable outlets like Recode, AdAge, and Bloomberg before NYT, so he's a pretty experienced media and fashion reporter.

While I agree this article doesn't have anything all that notable if you've read previous articles in WWD, NY Post/Page Six, elsewhere, the author did interview 18 black journalists who worked with Wintour.

Newly (?) reported incidents in the article:

-Wintour using "pickaninny" in a message to an employee
-her absence from a CN company meeting on race
-trying to have the Bon Appetit writer's post removed
-"fronting" with junior employees

 

[axiomatic]

The problem with this kind of article....It makes me wonder how many POC or black people are in higher positions at the NYT.

The executive editor and the author of this article are POC. I'm guessing the leadership at NYT is more diverse than most elite media organizations, but everyone can judge for oneself:

Our People | The New York Times Company

 

[Benn98]

He's the former fashion features editor at WWD and has worked at notable outlets like Recode, AdAge, and Bloomberg before NYT, so he's a pretty experienced media and fashion reporter.

While I agree this article doesn't have anything all that notable if you've read previous articles in WWD, NY Post/Page Six, elsewhere, the author did interview 18 black journalists who worked with Wintour.

Newly (?) reported incidents in the article:

-Wintour using "pickaninny" in a message to an employee
-her absence from a CN company meeting on race
-trying to have the Bon Appetit writer's post removed
-"fronting" with junior employees

I still stand by every single word I said because, despite all the legwork he did, the article comes across as sensational, antagonistic and as previously pointed out, poorly researched if only for all the cheap shots being taken to tear someone down. Not just poorly researched because of the Elaine blunder, but because his so-called prestigious journalistic expertise clearly failed to hold the entire CN ecosystem accountable, not only one of the players. Obviously because right now that would 'trend'. And that's why the article is no different to the type of tacky tabloid fodder you'd find in The Sun or Sebastian Shakespeare's columns in the Mail.

I instantly dismiss it as 'an agenda' when people call out someone as seriously as they do in this article but fail to also mention areas where they've succeeded, which in this case is actually quite important because in the greater scheme of things she succeeded in helping drive black American culture in areas beyond fashion. In Anna's case, it's very clear what's happening here. Social justice is being manipulated to push her out.
I'm not disputing any of the editors' experiences, in fact, I'm certain most of it is true. But a supposedly respected newspaper like NYTrash should at the very least report responsibly. I mean, this is not an op-ed, is it?

Again, I firmly believe Anna Wintour's time is up at Vogue, creatively speaking. Yes, she made herself indispensable, can still to get the tongues wagging with the cover subjects, and the magazine still pulls in the most views on here and elsewhere, but the entire concept of American Vogue need a reboot.

 

[tigerrouge]

I think magazines in general are heading into a new chapter that will continue to be fraught with problems.

Let’s say magazines manage to achieve a level of diversity that people are generally content with – what will that representation look like in reality? Magazines are driven by money, consumption and elitism, so the chances are high that the new faces represented on the pages (and behind the scenes) will continue to follow the same old recipe of people who do not reflect the majority.

Those for whom the definition of representation is “representation of the average person” will therefore continue to be immensely disappointed by the sight of this new elite being promoted on the pages.

On the other hand, nobody wants to buy a fashion magazine to see average people living average lives, even though people will say that, in principle, this is what magazines should be doing.

Magazines used to tell the readers what to think – Anna Wintour was very good at creating a vision of how the high fashion world should be. These days, readers are telling the magazines what to think, but readers don’t seem to know what they truly want.

There’s something in human nature that finds a dictator extremely desirable. Everyone is aware that what they’re doing is “wrong” but people benefit so much from the clear direction and structured universe created by the dictator, that they are happy to stand back and let them get on with it – and then when they’re overthrown, denounce them. Everyone around them takes the easy path. Standing up to the person when they were at the height of their power, THAT is speaking out - but kicking them on the way down? Anyone can do that, and everyone will, just to have a tiny nibble at what’s left of the power.

 

[Miss Dalloway]

For me the problem with the article is that it lacks balance, and that is because it fails to make greater arguments against Wintour stick. Yeah she didn' attend the meeting, it's not a good look, but hardly a huge offense.Used the wrong word, but she also acknowledged it might not be the right word to use. Also the balls he has to throw her support of Galliano in her face is so ridiculous, to me. She never approved of what happened, she supported him when he came out of rehab. I thougth that was amazing, and knew some will use it against her eventually. She knew, I bet, which says a lot about her.

Also if we are examining the history of Wintour, why not mention the fact when she took over the title she was the first EIC in HISTORY of Vogue, or any major Fashion magazine in the world, to appoint a black Creative Director!! And that was 30 years before Enninful!!

 

[axiomatic]

For me the problem with the article is that it lacks balanc

Not sure how else the article can be balanced. Among the positives Lee details:

Condé Nast says that 42 percent of its editors in chief are now people of color, all of them put in place by Ms. Wintour.

Three other people of color said Condé Nast had made positive changes and Ms. Wintour had promoted them to top roles. Naomi Campbell, one of the first Black supermodels, who was on the cover of Ms. Wintour’s first September issue in 1989, vehemently defended the editor

When Ms. Wintour promoted Elaine Welteroth, a Black woman, to a top position at Teen Vogue in 2016, the appointment was heralded as a step forward for diversity.

André Leon Talley, a fashion titan, was one of Vogue’s most recognized personalities, often seated beside Ms. Wintour in the front row at runway shows in Paris, Milan and New York. She lavished professional and financial support on Mr. Talley

Ms. Wintour was part of the small committee that decided to replace the departing Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter with Radhika Jones, the editorial director of the books department at The Times, making her one of the few top editors of color in Condé Nast’s history. Ms. Wintour has since championed Ms. Jones against in-house naysayers who complained that she had featured too many people of color in Vanity Fair. “My experiences with Anna have been nothing but positive,” Ms. Jones said. “She’s supportive of my vision and she understands what I’ve been trying to achieve and she has helped me to achieve it.”

Ms. Wintour replaced Stuart Emmrich, a former Styles editor at The Times, as the editor of the Vogue website with Chioma Nnadi, a Black woman who had been the magazine’s fashion director. And in August, Ms. Wintour was instrumental in the hiring of the superstar book executive Dawn Davis, who is Black, as the editor of Bon Appétit.

Further, Lee gave Wintour, Posnick, Coddington, and CN the chance to respond; all have statements included in the article.

I agree that many of the incidents seem minor when considered individually, and there's no "smoking gun" of a type used to take-down other media executives, I do not see how this article isn't balanced

 

[Miss Dalloway]

^ I still feel like it should be better balanced, the article like this usually has more arguments, I think he failed to present them in the usual NYTIMES way. Do you think Wintour or anyone at CN is really concerned about this article? The Telegraph is also publishing an article about the awful year Wintour had, so i guess it's open season on Anna. I just don't see her leaving because any of these attacks. They defo need the smoking gun.

 

[MissMagAddict]

They defo need the smoking gun.

With a silver bullet.

 

[Miss Dalloway]

^ I predict Wintour will be out of Vogue by the mid 2021.