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Suddenly, the White House Hates Secrets   Rita Cosby's $60 Million Scoop
Oct 2 2007 4:50PM EDT

How 'Glamour' Kept the Black Hair Flap Alive

Maybe you've read about the Glamour editor who conjured a storm of bad press for the magazine by telling a group of lawyers that Afro hairdos are a bad look for corporate America.

As it happens, I know the editor in question, who resigned last week after six weeks on probation. Her name's Ashley Baker. (It's surprising that she has not yet been identified, considering she wrote about the speech on her blog the day it happened.)

I can hardly claim to be impartial here -- Ashley's a friend, and I once freelanced for Glamour, which is owned by the same company as Portfolio -- but a few things deserve to be said.

First, Ashley is no racist, just a young writer who said something glib without considering how it would sound to someone from a different background, and then compounded her mistake by not telling her bosses about it until too long after the fact.

Second, Glamour's reaction -- quietly placing Ashley on probation, assigning a guest-editor to take over her blog, issuing a few ad-hoc responses and hoping the flap would blow over -- doesn't make a lot of sense, especially considering that all parties agree the article in American Lawyer that touched off the fuss was a gross exaggeration.

Glamour certainly had the right to act in its own interest rather than its employee's. But a faster, more transparent response by the magazine, involving a personal statement of contrition from Ashley to readers -- something she offered to provide when the story first flared up -- would, I suspect, have doused the flames before they could spread. (It also would probably have been welcomed by Suze Yalof Schwartz, who was accused by Gawker of being the offending party, and not allowed to respond until a few days ago.) Instead, Glamour has endured six weeks of negative stories and angry mail from readers, and Ashley's out of a job.

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