Vanilla Ceiling: Magazines Still Shades of White

by Lizzy Ratner

In the spring of 2000, when Nedra Rhone was still a bright-eyed graduate student at Columbia’s School of Journalism, she had the fortune of landing an interview with a recruiter for Gruner + Jahr’s glossy-covered Fitness magazine. The recruiter was white; Ms. Rhone was black. They chatted amiably for several minutes, small-talking their way through her fitness background and writing experience. And then the recruiter said something that rather surprised her.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you want to work for Essence?’” Ms. Rhone recalled. Essence is not a sibling Gruner + Jahr publication, but was an independently owned production of Essence Communications Partners. It caters to a largely African-American audience and has nothing to do with fitness.

“I didn’t say anything, because I was so taken aback,” Ms. Rhone said. “But then he followed with ‘How about O magazine?’—which I thought was even more interesting, because that’s obviously not a black publication; it just so happens that Oprah is. So I was really kind of confused by the whole thing.”

A spokesperson at Fitness, which is now published by Meredith Corporation, declined to comment and referred calls to a spokesperson for Gruner + Jahr. That spokesperson also declined to comment.

After getting turned down by Fitness and a second magazine, Ms. Rhone eventually landed a job in the comparatively welcoming environment of a major New York–area newspaper. In 2005, after taking a second crack at the magazine industry, she decided to head south for a job at a large Southern newspaper. “It’s a very difficult environment to penetrate,” she said of the magazine scene.

At Condé Nast, the premier magazine empire, the fleet of 29 top editors includes just one person of color.

“The magazine industry is probably the least diverse of any of the media. They’ve taken a real pass,” said Pamela Newkirk, a professor at New York University’s Department of Journalism and author of Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media. “As I say that, I can just hear all the people trying to shake the trees to tell you they have all this diversity—and then start mentioning people in the mailroom. But no, I’ve been in too many of these places, and I know firsthand that they are just not diverse.”