John Malveaux of
writes:
Ebony/Jet sold
Ebony and Jet were once recognized worldwide
as chroniclers of the black American experience — especially black
achievement. Johnson Publishing is selling the magazines to black
venture capitalists.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And now let's report on the sale of Ebony and Jet. ClearView
Group, an African-American private equity firm, bought those
historically-black magazines. Karen Grigsby Bates from our Code Switch
team reports in the magazine's founder, Johnson Publishing.
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE: For decades, Ebony and Jet magazines
were on many black Americans' coffee tables and in the waiting rooms of
black doctors and dentists and in much thumbed-through piles in black
barbershops and beauty salons. Audrey Smaltz, a former announcer for the
Ebony Fashion Fair, one of the world's largest traveling fashion shows,
says these magazines were a must.
AUDREY SMALTZ: People wanted to know what was going on in the colored world, in the African-American community.
BATES: Smaltz went to work at Ebony in the 1970s, partly because
of original publisher John Johnson's focus on stories about black
achievers. In its heyday, politicians and movie stars, entrepreneurs,
artists and athletes were all featured on Ebony's covers.
SMALTZ: Mr. Johnson told us about people who had studied and had
done great things and had discovered things and designed things. Where
did you hear about them? You read about it in Ebony.
BATES: Its sister publication, Jet, became famous in 1955 for
publishing unedited photos of Chicago teenager Emmett Till's body after
he was lynched in Mississippi. The national outrage that followed is
credited by many with igniting the modern civil rights movement.
Sylvester Monroe is a former Ebony senior editor and native Chicagoan.
He says the company's flagship building, designed by a black architect
and filled with African and African-American art, was also a source of
inspiration to the city's black community.
SYLVESTER MONROE: There was just a huge amount of pride to have a
black publication and that logo up on top of the building that you
could see for a long way away. And it saying Ebony, Jet - it did used to
bring goose pimples to you.
BATES: So when the building was sold in 2011, there was anxious speculation about the future of the magazines it had housed.
KEN SMIKLE: In many ways, after the building was sold, everyone was waiting for the next shoe to drop.
BATES: That's Ken Smikle, president of Target Market News, a
Chicago-based corporate marketing news company that tracks black
consumer buying patterns and trends. Jet ceased publication a couple of
years ago and now exists in digital form only. Ebony has both digital
and print versions. Both magazines had been victims of the same
fragmentation and shrinking circulation that has affected much of the
publishing world. And some of Ebony's critics feel it has lost a lot of
the influence it had in the 50s and 60s when it covered the civil rights
movement. But questioning Ebony's relevance clearly rankles Smikle.
SMIKLE: When folks would say, do you think the magazine and the
company are still relevant? And I would say, I don't know. Is your
grandmother still relevant?
BATES: In other words, history is still important, not just to
readers, but also to employees. Ken Smikle says Ebony's staff considers
their work more than just a job.
No comments:
Post a Comment