Teen Vogue changed how a generation saw politics and inclusion. That era could be over

This story was originally stated by Candice Norwood of The th Meet Candice and read more of her reporting on gender politics and guidelines As The th makes plans for we want to hear from you Complete our annual survey to let us know your thoughts For the last decade Teen Vogue has been an unexpected source of various of the largest part searing progressive political analysis in American media It s a pivot the publication began in April when Elaine Welteroth took over as leader She became the publication s second editor in chief and the second Black person ever to hold that title under the publishing giant Cond Nast Previously focused mostly on teen style trends and celebrity red carpet looks the magazine s website soon included headlines like Trauma From Slavery Can Veritably Be Passed Down Through Your Genes and Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America Readers took notice Between January and January web traffic reportedly grew from million U S visitors to million But that era could be over On November Cond Nast released that the Vogue brand would absorb Teen Vogue resulting in the layoffs of at least six staffers bulk of whom are BIPOC women or trans according to a announcement published by the Cond Union Both in and now the changes at Teen Vogue reflect a larger political and cultural moment taking place throughout the country Eleven years ago conversations about race gender and systemic inequity began to take a more prominent place in media and politics leading to an expansion of diversity in hiring and messaging across industries But the journalists brought in to help build trust and strengthen credibility on anti-trans bill grassroots activism and more are being pushed back toward the margins It sucks that it invariably seems to come down to the the greater part diverse people in the room being let go commented Aiyana Ishmael who was laid off from her position as Teen Vogue s style editor this month She and lifestyle editor Kaitlyn McNab say they were the last two Black women working full time on Teen Vogue s editorial organization Now they are both gone It just shows that we still have so much work to do when it comes to actual longstanding progression of having diverse voices in newsrooms she declared adding It s about who deserves to stay and who doesn t Who gets moved around to another sector and who do you choose to just throw away Newsroom restructuring at major broadcast networks has led to the cancellation of shows this year with women of color anchors including The ReidOut with Enjoyment Reid and Alex Wagner Tonight Last month NBC cut its identity-focused platforms NBC BLK NBC Latino NBC Asian America and NBC Out teams that were all led by women Aiyana Ishmael interviews singer Tanner Adell onstage at the Teen Vogue Summit in Los Angeles Anna Webber Getty Images for Teen Vogue There are no specific figures tracking journalism job losses among women of color however one survey published by the Institute for Independent Journalists detected that while women represent percent of the journalism workforce they comprised percent of respondents who experienced layoffs or buyouts between and Separately percent of survey respondents who experienced a buyout or layoff were people of color though they make up about percent of the journalism industry Reporter Hanaa Tameez with the Nieman Journalism Lab analyzed full-time journalism jobs related to race diversity and equality that were posted and filled between June and December As of summer percent of these positions have been eliminated While the news industry has long experienced financial challenges in the digital media era the idea that journalists of color and queer journalists are solely the collateral damage of these financial trends is an excuse that never rings right to me reported Dr Sherri Williams an associate professor of journalism at American University who researches race in media and communications This is really justification for newsrooms to stop doing what they never really longed to do in the first place Williams explained The news of Teen Vogue layoffs came as a complete shock to Ishmael For her and several others she worked with Teen Vogue was their first full-time job in journalism She was when Teen Vogue began its transition to more inclusive and political coverage Growing up as a tall dark-skinned plus-size Black woman in Florida she did not see numerous women who looked like her on the pages of glossy magazines or fashion blogs Usually I was very invisible made fun of not the one that people saw as this stimulating and cool person Ishmael revealed That reality took a turn for the better after she landed her first big-girl job at Teen Vogue four years ago Ishmael started as an editorial assistant and worked her way up to an associate editor position before being promoted to the publication s style editor this October just weeks before she was laid off But Ishmael made her mark on the organization She created a viral series CTRL C replicating the style of celebrities like Zendaya and Dua Lipa for plus-size bodies She successfully pitched putting Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles on the July digital cover and star Louisiana State University basketball player Flau jae Johnson on September digital cover Ishmael s North Star in this work has been to stay true to herself and her values inspired by Welteroth s legacy But as time went on Ishmael disclosed she started to see the numbers of Black women on the editorial staff dwindle until only she and McNab remained I think in general you just get sad not specifically at Teen Vogue but Cond Nast-wide We have so a large number of group chats between all the Black staffers and then smaller groups of cohorts We really stuck together Ishmael explained Cond Nast-wide we ve seen in the last couple of years Black women leaving and Black people in general leaving In interviews Welteroth explained that when she and her squad took over they desired to better represent the diverse perspectives and interests of teens and young adults There are stereotypes that exist unfortunately particularly around young people and young girls and I think we need to do the work to break those stereotypes down Welteroth recounted NPR in The day that article Trump is Gaslighting America was published we sold in that month more copies of the magazine than we had that entire year she continued And that trend continued because Teen Vogue emerged as the voice of a new generation of politically engaged socially conscious young people And the world just wasn t ready When Welteroth took the helm in the Black Lives Matter movement was bringing renewed attention to police brutality and systemic racism in the criminal legal system President Donald Trump s first presidential campaign stoked preexisting racial anxieties by characterizing Brown and Black undocumented immigrants as murderers and rapists and Black Lives Matter protesters as thugs To meet this moment newsrooms expanded identity-related coverage between and particularly in the nonprofit news space In addition to legacy newsrooms like the Associated Press The Washington Post and USA In the present day hiring more race and identity specific reporters new nonprofits like Prism MLK Scalawag Magazine Capital B The Emancipator TransLash El T mpano and The th were founded with missions to overview on marginalized communities Of those eight nonprofits all were founded or led by women seven by women of color five by Black women Nonprofit news organizations whose primary mission is serving communities of color nearly doubled from to organizations between and according to the Institute for Nonprofit News While not a nonprofit Teen Vogue played a role in paving the way for more diversity both through its content and its hiring behind the scenes Williams explained The publication gave dozens of young writers from diverse backgrounds their first major bylines In for example Williams partnered with Teen Vogue to publish five stories written by her students marking the anniversary of George Floyd s killing by a police officer in Minneapolis and how it sparked national protests and a so-called racial reckoning What I think Teen Vogue established the rest of the industry is that there is an appetite for these stories People are really interested in these stories she commented Williams noted that Welteroth got her start in journalism at Ebony Magazine a women s publication previously owned by the Johnson Publishing Company which played a prominent role in documenting the Civil Rights Movement and brutality against Black people I think of everything that s happening right now in this time corporate media is failing us but ethnic media queer media women s media is not Williams continued So what I think that Elaine did is she took certain of those sensibilities from Black media and applied it to Teen Vogue centering marginalized people and groups and really amplifying their concerns and addressing them in a substantive way that was bold and fearless Welteroth s group did not get back to The th s request for an interview but in previous interviews she has stated that during her time at Ebony she learned how to lift up the underdog and be the underdog She left Teen Vogue in and the publication s second Black woman editor Lindsay Peoples took over until In a message posted to Teen Vogue s social media accounts on Tuesday the publication announced Our mission remains the same to offer a critical and distinctive point of view about the things that spark passion and purpose among young people in current times It s unclear if and how the staffing changes will affect Teen Vogue s coverage but Ishmael and Williams both emphasized that layoffs affecting journalists of color LGBTQ journalists and women journalists extend beyond one publication Diverse journalism roles were already on the decline prior to Trump s second term But the current administration s crackdown on hiring and practices that promote diversity equity and inclusion DEI has given a green light for restrictions across industries Nationwide workers of color particularly Black women bear the brunt of job losses in In the first three months this year an estimated Black women lost jobs When places like Teen Vogue NBC CBS and beyond lose racial and gender diversity on their staff they lose the ability to not only elevate stories from the Black society for example but they also lose the ability to capture nuances and perspectives from different Black communities Ishmael reported Williams announced that the audience will lose out on relevant context that helps us understand why we are where we are in our society There may be stories of inequality that get missed she added but she encourages them to be strategic by supporting the outlets that remain Now it is just time for the audience the readership to really put its money where its mouth is Williams commented Really get serious about trying to maintain the media that is still around that has a commitment for centering communities that are never going to get the kind of coverage that they deserve Disclosure Teen Vogue is a member of the th News Setup The post Teen Vogue changed how a generation saw politics and inclusion That era could be over appeared first on Salon com