Bon Appetit Magazine Image Crisis
November 7, 2020 | By Leeza Jackson
A photo of Adam Rapport, Editor in Chief of food magazine Bon Appetit, in brown face resurfaced and started to go viral in March this year. Adam Rapport was then publicly accused of allowing racism and discrimination into his private life as well as allowing it to be apart of the Bon Appetit work culture.
Many of the employees, who were very popular with the Bon Appetit audience through their YouTube channel, decided to leave the company due to this. Some were vocal about the issues as to why they parted ways. The reasonings were even for damaging to the Bon Appetit reputation because they spoke on the lack of equitable pay and feelings of racial discrimination from higher management. The biggest highlight however was a substantial lack of covering a diverse range of food. They called out the fact that the magazine is mainly focused on white comfort and viewership.
The Response from Bon Appetit was a quick apology that was sent and then the resignation of the Editor in Chief Adam Rapport was released publicly soon after. Once that was done, the Bon Appetit company had to go reconstructing their internal team and systems. During that time, press announcements and articles about the company began to be released all about how they are now hiring more people of color into leadership positions at the company. Bon Appetit has also decided to be very transparent and honest by creating their own articles, stories and posts explaining exactly what the new changes are being implemented.
This was a brilliant strategy for Bon Appetit to take because the need to rebuild trust was crucial and the trust was broken with the internal system there. The best remedy to that is being transparent and vulnerable about those necessary internal changes that were taking place in order to start the rebuilding process with the audience. Additionally, the way the information was formatted to be put onto social media platforms to reach the most people with the clearest message was effective.
With that being said, the Bon Appetit YouTube channel, which had up to a million subscribers, when silent. The previous video personalities that were popular with their audience were also the main employees speaking out against the company and many left Bon Appetit Magazine all together. The video content was last to be repaired and as of September, they have deliberately introduced all the new leaders and video personalities in the company through a YouTube video. They have continued to post videos with a more diverse food and personality range to try and show implementation of change.
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Leeza Jackson is a Public Relations major with a minor in sustainability at California State University Northridge (CSUN). The San Diego native has become a strong advocate for diversity within the environmental industry To continue this, she has developed skills in social media marketing to reflect the inclusive spaces at CSUN. Through events and conversations, she strives to create opportunities, policies and events that truly promote the people’s voice.