From a New York Times story by Katie Robertson and Ben Smith headlined “Hearst Employees Say Magazine Boss Led Toxic Culture”:
For decades Hearst magazines have advised American women on how they should conduct themselves in the home (Good Housekeeping, Redbook), in society (Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country) and in the bedroom (Cosmopolitan).
This is the company whose stars have included Oprah Winfrey, the head of O: The Oprah Magazine, which Hearst has helped run since 2000; and Helen Gurley Brown, the groundbreaking editor who transformed the once-staid Cosmopolitan into a racy monthly that angered conservatives and feminists alike while selling big on newsstands.
But inside the Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, the Hearst Magazines leader, Troy Young, has drawn complaints from people who said he had made lewd, sexist remarks at work. And in recent weeks, inspired by the civil rights movement, current and former employees at Cosmopolitan and another Hearst women’s title, Marie Claire, have spoken out on social media and during staff meetings on what they describe as a toxic environment. . . .
One incident involving Mr. Young occurred during a visit to the Cosmopolitan office when he was the digital head, according to two people who were present. Mr. Young picked up one of the sex toys that had been sent to the magazine and asked if he could keep it, the people said. Referring to the openings of two toys, he said he would “definitely need the bigger one,” the people said. . . .
At a Cosmopolitan holiday party in 2013, Mr. Young joined a group in which a young staff member was describing a bad date with a man who complained of an ex-girlfriend’s odor. The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive conversation, said Mr. Young had told her that she should have inserted her fingers into herself and asked her date if he liked her smell. The woman said she was shocked by his comment and walked away. . . .
Mr. Young, 52, addressed the former Hearst employees’ complaints in a statement for this article: “Specific allegations raised by my detractors are either untrue, greatly exaggerated or taken out of context. The pace of evolving our business and the strength of my commitment is ambitious, and I sincerely regret the toll it has taken on some in our organization.”
As for the holiday party, he said in a separate statement, “Candid conversations about sex defined the Cosmo brand for decades, and those who worked there discussed it openly.”. . .
A Hearst Magazines spokeswoman said that, during Mr. Young’s years as digital chief, his “relentless pursuit of excellence was at times combined with a brash demeanor that rubbed some the wrong way.” The spokeswoman added, “Since being named president of the division, he has worked to develop a more inclusive management style.”
As part of the shake-up on Mr. Young’s watch, Jessica Pels became Cosmopolitan’s youngest top editor in 2018. Before that, she had run the magazine’s digital side and was the digital head of Marie Claire. During the recent weeks of protests against racism and police violence, Ms. Pels has faced staff members’ demands for action on what they described as a culture of discrimination that has long been ignored.
Ms. Pels held staff videoconferences in the wake of social media comments posted last month by Jazmin Jones, who had worked under Ms. Pels as a video editor at Marie Claire. In an Instagram post, Ms. Jones, who is Black, accused the company of racial discrimination, saying she was made to feel uncomfortable in threads that touched on race in the interoffice communications app Slack. . . .
In an interview, Ms. Jones, 30, said, “Hearst doesn’t care about you if you’re not a skinny white lady.”. . .
Prachi Gupta, who covered politics for the Cosmopolitan site during the 2016 presidential campaign, before Ms. Pels became editor, said she felt that Black and brown women were made to “feel less than equal” at the company. . . .
Hearst employees have questioned company leadership at a time when employees at its more glamorous rival, Condé Nast, have done the same. There have also been staff revolts at other media organizations, including The Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Wall Street Journal and Refinery29.
Last month Hearst Magazines appointed Samira Nasr, previously Vanity Fair’s fashion director, as the top editor of the U.S. edition of Harper’s Bazaar. She is the first woman of color to hold the post. And Cosmopolitan started an initiative, “Cosmo Can Do Better,” that calls for the hiring of more Black people and people of color. . . .
Michelle Ruiz, a former senior editor at Cosmopolitan, said the messages of inclusion and empowerment from many Hearst publications were at odds with company leadership. She described an encounter with Mr. Young at the Hearst cafeteria that took place when she was heavily pregnant. “So, is the baby mine?” he said, as she recalled it.
“For an executive at the company to suggest that he’d impregnated me was clearly inappropriate,” said Ms. Ruiz, now a contributing editor at Vogue.com. “There’s a real hypocrisy to elevating this man to lead a company populated with magazines that are preaching women’s empowerment on their covers.”
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