Former Essence magazine editor: Why people will still buy print

The Oscars telecast on Sunday marked three major wins for African-Americans. Ruth Carter won the award for best costume design for “Black Panther”; Mahershala Ali won for best supporting actor (“Green Book”), and Hannah Beachler got the best production design award, also for “Black Panther.”

Vanessa de Luca, who served as the editor-in-chief of Essence magazine for five years before it was sold by Time Inc to a holding company owned by Richelieu Dennis last year, joined Yahoo Finance’s YFi AM show to talk about the importance of recognizing Black History Month and achievements by African-Americans.

“It’s incredibly important, because we need to make sure that our history is not erased, not put to the sideline, it’s not forgotten,” says de Luca. “So having a moment to reflect on what the contributions have been and continue to be like we saw last night in the history making wins in the Oscars, it’s incredibly important especially if we’re young people who might want to follow in these footsteps.”

As the editor-in-chief of Essence, de Luca strove to help black women celebrate their beauty by featuring women of all shapes and sizes.

“It was very important to us to make sure that everyone was represented, meaning all skin tones, all shapes, all sizes, all different types of hair textures. People want to see themselves reflected. They want so see themselves in the media that they’re digesting. So having the power, and influence and responsibility was critically important to us,” she says.

Still room for print

While de Luca is no longer at the helm of a major print publication, she is confident that the industry will survive, and thrive.

“I think there’s still a place for print,” says de Luca. “I think that when you look at some of the digital first companies, think about Medium. Right now they’re starting to go in to doing standalone print publications as a number of others have done as well. So there’s still an audience for that.”

When e-books came out, book publishers were scared it would spell the end of the industry. But, de Luca says, people still buy books. “It’s still a popular of way consuming information, so I think there’s always going to be a place for it – it’s just that there has to be a multi-platform strategy,” she says. “It can’t just be one or the other. It has to be multiple ways where people can find themselves and find themselves in the information.”

De Luca now does public speaking and works as a coach, helping people trying to pivot in their own careers. She also serves on the advisory board of three innovative startups: Geenie, Kanarys, and Hurston – all led by young black women.

Geenie is a monthly subscription box service curated by a “geenie,” or guest curator. De Luca says Stacey Abrams, the politician, has been among the curators. Kanarys is a platform companies can use to measure how well they’re doing in their efforts to increase diversity and inclusion. Hurston House meanwhile, has a similar concept to the The Wing, the community and work space for women. Its target market is black women interested in networking.

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