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Living The Ebony Life: E-Mails From The Plantation
By Zondra Hughes

"New media didn't derail our Ebonymagazine; bad management did."

In May of 2003, a festive Linda Johnson Rice, CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, served popcorn and peanuts to company employees, officially launching the newly redesigned Ebonymagazine.

The recurring theme of the celebration was 'out with the old, and in with the new,' and that was music to The Man's ears. The Man was eager to take the helm of the magazine and spared no deception to prove it.

The Man made his move and earned her trust. He positioned himself as 'the new,'and convinced her that The Head, his boss, was 'the old.'

And he was successful.

Months later, Linda Johnson Rice assigned The Man to oversee the redesign of the magazine's Beauty & Style section, sparking a power struggle within the ranks of Ebony's senior management.

The Head of senior management had generally made such decisions. And The Head was not one to bow down. And so it went, day after day, an ep ic, ego-driven power struggle fueled by The Man's greed and faulty sense of entitlement.

Gracefully, The Head removed him self, but The Man's quest for absolute power raged on; this time, fueled by the threat of becoming'the old.'

The Man set out to block any hint of 'change,' as he perceived it as a threat to his absolute power.

Once again, The Man was successful. Younger voices were muffled. Fresh ideas were snuffed out.

Editorial content was sacrificed and bartered for The Man's perks and personal favors.

Subscriptions dwindled. Newsstand sales slipped. Advertising revenues took a hit.

The Man charged on, wearing a crown never given and certainly not due. He schemed, and scammed, and deceived and entrapped, until the No. 1 Black magazine in the world was a shell of itself, scrambling to prove its relevancy in a shifting me dia climate; struggling to reconnect with its readers.

The Man, unfazed by the tragedy of his misdeeds, fleeced Ebony magazine until his backside hit the door. And even then, The Man escaped with an Ebony golden parachute.

Finally,Newsweek reports that Ebony may be looking for a buyer, causing ripples all over the world.

The chorus of bloggers and pundits ruthlessly criticized Ebony's content and charged that its existence was moot. They charged that Ebony be came a victim of its own success. They charged that the magazine's failure to embrace the evolving world outside its window ultimately sealed its fate.

That's one point of view.

But here's mine: Ebony's woes aren't the result of a self-inflicted wound. But it was an inside job. The Man did it--and this book offers the proof.

The lackluster, outdated, content is often blamed for the dive in paid subscriptions and newsstand sales.

From 1999-2006, I was a part of the team that produced that subpar content.

Thus, in this book I will tell you why. I will describe the duties of the Asso ciate Editor, and the work conditions on The Plantation, because the Asso ciate Editors produced, on average, 75% of the magazine's content.

For seven years I was a hardworking Associate Editor, with no promotion in my future--an oddity that the fel low Associate Editors seemed to rec ognize far sooner than I did.

The workload was insane, there was no chance in hell of a promotion, but we all wanted the same thing: To revolutionize the content and to rec laim and fortify Ebony's relevancy to our generation as well.

We knew that if we applied our selves we could do it.

But we were wrong.

We underestimated the power of The Man. Some of us left gracefully. Oth_ers, like me, were tossed out. One by one, The Man got us all.

But, as always, Karma would have the last word.

Zondra Hughes
Author