Like all magazines in today’s marketplace, two of the oldest institutions, Ebony and Jet, were struggling. With the largest warehouse of black photos and black content and one of the few completely black-owned publications, they were about to be sold this past June and black ownership in publishing would have been almost completely lost.
But Linda Johnson Rice, daughter of Johnson Publishing founder John H. Johnson, has invigorated new life in to the publications, hiring former editor of Harper’s Bazaar Amy DuBois Barnett as a new editor-in-chief and announcing on Tuesday that the former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, embroiled in scandal less than a year ago, would be the new CEO.
Rogers stepped down from her Obama Administration job following the 2009 White House state dinner gatecrasher incident involving the Salahis. Michaele and Tareq Salahi became infamous when they reportedly crashed a state dinner honoring India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House in November 2009.
