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When Casey Lewis (a brilliant writer and editor, as well as the mastermind behind After School, which you almost certainly already receive) tweeted that Vogue.com had posted a job listing for the site director, yet only had 27 applicants, my first thought was: Well, yea, who would want that job? I mean, here’s the description of primary responsibilities:
That is, if you’ll excuse my French, a metric fuckton of work. This is a role that touches on pretty much everything a modern media brand is required to do in 2023—written and video content, social media and engagement, the all-important affiliate business, sales and branded content strategies—but I’m exhausted even contemplating how many meetings you’d be in on a daily basis. And here are the qualifications they were looking for in an ideal candidate to do all of this:
That’s no small order. And the reward for taking on this role? Ballparked between $170,000 and $225,000 a year. Compare this to the viral job listing for Chobani’s executive writer position, which was listed at $185,600 and $278,400 a year. In addition to the pay being better, I can just about promise you the Chobani employee has a better work-life balance than someone running Vogue’s digital newsroom. (Though, maybe the dairy and dairy alternative world is equally demanding, I don’t know.)
As anyone who has worked in for a media company in the last, oh, decade can tell you, it is not for the weak. In the race for KPIs (key performance indicators, which for a media brand will likely include overall traffic, unique visitors, video views, etc.), one of the few ways you can hope to beat your competitors—who will all be covering the exact same things, mind you—is to do it faster than they can.
And what will you be covering in a digital capacity for a media entity like Vogue.com? Fashion goes without saying: the international fashion circuit of New York, London, Milan, and Paris, twice a year, which basically eats up all of February and September; a random assortment of other international fashion weeks, based upon the offer of free travel and accommodation in exchange for coverage; couture shows twice a year, menswear twice a year if things are particularly jazzy; the Met Gala, Vogue’s tentpole event for which employees are tasked with working from the basement of the Met.
Vogue is at the center of Hollywood and culture, too, so: Art Basels, whenever those happen (as an art dummy, I feel like they happen all the time yet somehow never know when or where); all of awards season, from the Golden Globes to Oscars, which will chew through several winter Sundays; film festivals like Cannes, Venice, etc.; TV and movie premieres with all their attendant press.
But Vogue has also gotten into politics and news, so there’s breaking news to contend with, election cycles to cover—woe betide you in a presidential year, that’s just a nonstop nightmare—and op-eds to consider.
Plus digital rollout plans for the print product, and whatever events—like Vogue Forces of Fashion—the company has ideated to drum up some extra income.
It’s a lot!!! Like, holy moly, I’m worn out even thinking about that. That’s only a sample of everything a digital newsroom like Vogue’s would be expected to cover—and of course, the editor of Vogue.com wouldn’t be responsible for every single piece that goes up on the site, but they’re there to guide all of that. And that’s provided everything goes smoothly, by the way, which it never, ever does.
My second thought seeing Lewis’s tweet was: Please, there is no way that job is still open. The fix, as they say, was in. Chioma Nnadi had been announced as Edward Enninful’s replacement at British Vogue all the way back in September, with rumors rumbling for much longer; Enninful’s announcement happened back in June. Those cogs had been in motion for months before Condé Nast posted a job listing, and this is not a company which puts things to the last minute.
By my unscientific and completely anecdotal math, nine of out ten times that job listings like that go live (especially at that level), there’s already a candidate in mind—if not already locked in, offer in hand, at least far enough along in the process that they’re a sure thing. The public listings are a CYA (cover your ass) formality, not an actual call for candidates. Well, either that, or they can’t find a candidate they like who will accept the pay they’re offering.
And, of course, about 10 days after Lewis tweeted, Vogue announced that longtime contributor Chloe Malle had taken the role. I suppose Malle could’ve applied, interviewed, and accepted in that time frame, but I just don’t believe that’s how things happened, not when Malle was already in the Vogue family. Most fashion media jobs are word-of-mouth, with maybe the exception of the major papers.
I don’t envy Malle the task in front of her, both for the reasons listed above and for the fact that working in digital media in any capacity in 2023 is, to be frank, an absolute shitshow most of the time. It is not a luxurious gig.
One of the things I find most baffling, though, is her title. It’s simply “editor” of Vogue.com. Like, what does that even mean? Titles are generally made up things anyway, to be frank, and they’re changing as fast as the digital landscape is. Things like “audience development manager” and “social media director” weren’t even a possibility when I started a little over ten years ago.
But it does still bother me the way Condé Nast in particular has continued to flatten down titles into nothingness. Take, for example, Nnadi’s new title at British Vogue: Rather than inherit the mantle of Editor-in-Chief, as so many who have gone before her have, she’s (god) Head of Editorial Content. This seems to be the preferred title for leaders at international Vogue titles; it was given to Eugenie Trochu, who took over for Emmanuelle Alt at Vogue Paris, and Francesca Ragazzi, who helms Vogue Italia. It’s also held by Rochelle Pinto at Vogue India and Tiffany Godoy at Vogue Japan.
I’d say this is the go-to moving forward, but there are few people still granted the vaunted Editor-in-Chief title: Christine Centenera at Vogue Australia, Margaret Zhang of Vogue China, and, technically, Anna Wintour at Vogue US, though her main title these days is Global Chief Content Officer for Condé Nast.
I can’t really make heads or tails of why there’d be a different title for some editors and not others, other than to guess that perhaps those with Editor-in-Chief lobbied for it in the interview process. What I can tell you is that I hate the “Head of Editorial Content” title. Hate. Maybe that’s a nitpicky thing to say when, again, all titles are made up, but there’s something so reductive and, to be honest, diminishing about it.
There’s a sexiness, a power to the Editor-in-Chief title. EICs get private town cars, first class tickets, clothing expense accounts; Heads of Editorial Content get added to the Uber for Business account, Comfort Plus seats* (*on flights longer than 5000 miles), a $50 Amazon gift card at the holidays if they hit their traffic goals. I’m exaggerating, but not by much. While I can understand that money isn’t in media anymore—and let’s be real, giving employees zero-interest home loans was excessive even in the ‘90s, come on—titles are free.
They also communicate something to the world. Women like Carine Roitfeld, Franca Sozzani, and, duh, Anna Wintour were able to build themselves up using the myth of the Editor-in-Chief. An EIC gets New York Times profile pieces, access to all the best events, entrée to the most important rooms. “Head of Editorial Content” doesn’t pack the same punch. Hell, “Editorial Director” is already in use across the industry, and that reads more powerful to me.
All “Head of Editorial Content” really means is that the person is tasked with overseeing print and digital product. So it sort of kills me that in this moment, where so many younger women are finally getting access to these roles, they’re handed twice as much work for an also-ran job title, to say nothing of the fact that they’re likely getting a fraction of the pay that their predecessors took home.
That’s a repeating motif across all of fashion media at this moment in time: More work for less money. It’s especially odious to consider that this is happening when women of color, left out of the conversation for decades, are finally taking places at the table. I don’t really believe anyone should be making seven figure salaries in media, not when the people at the bottom doing the grunt work are lucky to take home enough for bus fare, but it feels like the ladder is being pulled up behind the last generation of fashion editors.
And anyway, maybe I’m the only one salty about this; I don’t know any of these women, and maybe they’re perfectly fine with being the Head of Editorial Content. I just think they—and the generations of editors coming up behind them—deserve more.
Whew she’s tired just reading this!
I love the nuance behind explaining the burdens of editorial tasks in the current day and age. Additionally, I was surprised to see you list so many names of figures who are currently suffering in different branches of Vogue. I didn’t expect so many people to be victims of the same. To think POC and women have fallen into such unfortunate tragedies, and JUST when they were starting to gain some respect for their contribution to the work sectors.