Essence, the African-Ameri can fashion bible, has a new editor-in-chief some four months after its last editor, Angela Burt-Murray, resigned in the wake of weathering a cyber storm of controversy triggered by her hiring of the magazine’s first white fashion director.
Constance C.R. White, most recently style director, brand consultant and spokesperson for eBay — who earlier worked at Talk and Elle in top fashion jobs — is taking over the spot, which has been filled on an interim basis by Sheryl Tucker.
Last August, Burt-Murray hired a white woman, Ellianna Placas, as the fashion director of the magazine, igniting a firestorm of controversy among many readers who felt the position should have gone to an African-American.
Burt-Murray acknowledged the cyber fury but held her ground at the time.
Three months later, in November, she resigned after five years at the magazine, saying she wanted to return to Atlanta to be with her family. She resurfaced, briefly working for Arianna Huffington on the GlobalBlack project at the Huffington Post earlier this year, but was gone a month later. Placas, meanwhile, has remained on board at Essence.
White’s appointment is the first handled by Martha Nelson in her new position as editorial director, responsible for fashion and lifestyle magazines at Time Inc.
She starts on March 21.
Rich move
Could the lure of TV — and its chance for mega-bucks — have been a big, if not the primary, motivation for New York Times star columnist Frank Rich to leave the paper after 31 years for New York magazine?
Most stories this week carried the theory that he was looking for a change of pace after a long career as a weekly columnist writing about politics and culture. Earlier, he was the paper’s chief drama critic.
At New York magazine, Rich will pen a monthly column, with some added exposure writing commentary on nymag.com.
Wrote Jack Shafer in Slate: “If Rich’s move is about wanting to spend more time with his family, gain greater distance from Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal, free himself to pursue his HBO projects more aggressively, or to work once again with New York Editor Adam Moss, with whom he has a mind-meld, I understand. But unless the deal came with Bloombergian bags of cash, it makes no sense.”
Rich was sticking with that story yesterday. “My decision was not about money or time but, as I said, about wanting to do something different with my writing after doing the same column for 17 years.”
But Rich’s move clearly comes as he is stepping up his involvement with HBO, after signing a devel opment deal several years ago. “Veep,” a show about a woman vice president of the US with Julia Louis- Dreyfus attached as the star and Armando Iannucci on board as the main writer, is currently filming a pilot.
“If that goes to series, he’ll be very involved day to day,” said HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer. “Unlike commercial networks, when we go to pilot, it is more than likely that it will go to series,” he said.
A series would probably give Rich nice low six-figure annual paycheck, estimated one source. He has also secured the cooperation of Stephen Sondheim to do a documentary about the legendary Broadway lyricist, songwriter and playwright. Sondheim worked on the lyrics for the original “West Side Story,” won a Tony award for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and a Pulitzer Prize in drama for “Sunday in the Park with George,” in a long and distinguished career. But he has always been very guarded about his private life.
HBO recently green-lighted that project, although filming has not yet begun.
News loses
Just what is going on at the Daily News? Two more high-profile editorial types are exiting. Jayne Gould, who once worked at The Post and ascended to the chief creative officer job at the Daily News, is out, a well-placed source tells Media Ink.
Also departing is the well-liked Assignment Editor Marie McGovern.
Neither returned messages seeking comment.
The moves come only days after recently promoted Managing Editor Scott Wenger announced to staffers that he was leaving to join SourceMedia as one of its editorial directors — overseeing three business magazines — and Deputy Features Editor Amy DiLuna jumped ship to join Todayshow.com as a senior editor. Today is her last day.
Kevin Convey took over the editor-in-chief job from Martin Dunn late last summer, arriving from the Boston Herald, where dire financial straits caused a series of sharp staff cutbacks in recent years. Many staffers worried that he would be forced to undertake similar cuts at the News. So far, the fear seems justified. While there have been no mass layoffs, the paper has shed more than a half-dozen senior edit jobs in recent weeks — with no replacements on the horizon.
Beast peek
Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Newsweek Daily Beast, showed off the new design to Newsweek staffers yesterday in advance of the sweeping magazine redesign on heavier paper stock that is slated to hit newsstands on Monday.
The “My Turn” column, where some of Brown’s high-profile writer friends can find an outlet, is likely to return to the back of the book and “Conventional Wisdom,” a popular column, is likely to stay put.
Virtually all of the other changes from the Jon Meacham redesign will be jettisoned. But there will be one nod to history: a quick item featuring a cover from Newsweek’s past, stretching back 75 years. Meanwhile, the first of the 30 editorial people offered voluntary buyouts has until next week to put in their papers. Said one insider, “We were actually surprised to find there were still 30 people left, but apparently there are.” According to the Newspaper Guild, there are close to 90 Guild-covered employees on board.
In showing off the latest redesign, Brown didn’t actually show a prospective Monday cover but instead showed the staff the prototype featuring George Clooney, which became the real cover two weeks ago.
Brown has been keeping a fairly low profile on the redesign, anxious to avoid the over- hyping that accompanied her launch of Talk magazine back in 1999. It folded in early 2002 after burning through $54 million.
She also insists she is hewing to the budget given her by new owners Sidney Harman and Barry Diller‘s IAC/ InterActiveCorp, which formed the Newsweek Daily Beast joint venture.
RIP
Walter Zacharius, founder of Kensington Publishing Corp., died on Wednesday. He was 87 years old.
He was born and raised in Borough Park, Brooklyn, went through the public school system and attended New York University at night on the GI Bill after returning from World War II.
Kensington was never known as a big-ticket publishing house, but he was known for taking chances and giving many writers their starts — including Mario Puzo, Ken Follett, Jerzy Kosinski, Joyce Carol Oates and Carl Weber.
Although active in a wide number of activi ties, it wasn’t until 2004, when he was 81, that he published his first novel, “Songbird,” later re-titled, “The Memories We Keep.”
His son, Steven Zacharius, continues to run Kensington as president and CEO. kkelly@nypost.com