Dawn Davis Announced as New Editor-in-Chief of Bon Appétit | Eater
"After months of internal chaos and staff upheaval, the food magazine has faced a public reckoning over racism, pay inequity, and a toxic workplace culture that sparked high-profile resignations and the loss of much of its popular Test Kitchen video talent. The previous editor-in-chief, Adam Rapoport, stepped down after a photo surfaced of him and his wife mocking Puerto Ricans (with disputed allegations of brownface), and staffers including Sohla El-Waylly revealed that she—unlike many white colleagues—was not compensated for appearing in the widely viewed Test Kitchen videos. Priya Krishna, Rick Martinez, and El-Waylly stopped appearing after protracted contract negotiations they described as “torturous and dehumanizing,” and six Test Kitchen stars in total have announced they will no longer produce videos for the publication’s nearly six-million-subscriber YouTube channel. The magazine’s only two Black editorial staff also resigned, citing ongoing failure to recognize or fairly value their contributions. In response, Condé Nast posted an apology pledging to prioritize candidates of color for the top editorial role, implement anti-racism training, and resolve pay inequities, and subsequently appointed Dawn Davis as editor-in-chief (with Sonia Chopra named executive editor). Davis, a veteran publishing executive who founded and leads the 37 Ink imprint at Simon & Schuster, launched the Inkwell Book Club, previously ran Amistad Press at HarperCollins (overseeing titles such as Edward P. Jones’s Pulitzer-winning The Known World), and is the author of If You Can Stand the Heat; she says she plans to use her extensive Rolodex to elevate marginalized voices while overseeing print, digital, social, and video output and to reshape the title into a culturally minded, fun food magazine that does not operate in a vacuum." - Elazar Sontag
