NYT's 'T' Magazine Names Yanagihara Editor

After nearly five months without an editor, T: The New York Times Style Magazine announced today it will be led by Hanya Yanagihara.

Yanagihara has previously served as deputy editor of T Magazine, as well as editor-at-large of Condé Nast Traveler. She succeeds Deborah Needleman, who left T in late November after four years in the position. Executive editor Whitney Vargas filled in for Needleman, but left the magazine in February.

Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, stated Yanagihara will work to “elevate T’s distinct and provocative storytelling to a level that explores global culture and enriches each part of the T experience, in print and digitally.”

In an Instagram post announcing her new role, Yanagihara wrote: “In this extraordinary cultural moment, I feel strongly that those of us who have been trained to be journalists should be journalists. In T's case, this means spotlighting the people, places, designs, and art of all mediums and genres that might be seen by some as weird or off-putting or unsettling and yet are essential to expanding and challenging our idea of what beauty is."

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Yanagihara is of Asian descent and grew up in California, Maryland, New York, Texas and Hawaii. She brings a welcome touch of diversity to the NYT, which has expressed its commitment to the idea, but slow to enact changes.

Last year, NYT public editor Liz Spayd criticized the newspaper for its lack of diversity in the newsroom. At the time, only two of the 20+ reporters who covered the presidential campaign were black, and there were no Latinos or Asians in the pool. All six members of the new White House reporting team were white, as were most of the reporters in the Washington bureau.

Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn have stated they want to achieve more diversity -- women, people of color, non-Americans -- by 2020. T magazine’s managing editor Minju Pak and its creative director Patrick Li are also Asian; Baquet is African American.

Last month, T magazine reduced its publishing frequency from 13 to 11 issues a year.

At the time, a NYT spokesperson told Publishers Daily: "The shift in publication frequency is a reflection that content previously reserved for special-themed issues — such as beauty and entertaining — is increasingly being covered more holistically in each issue of T Magazine, as well as online.

"All aspects of special-themed issues, including frequency, are subject to review when a new editor of T Magazine is in place."

Separately, Charlie Kammerer, a former Time, Inc. executive, has been named Chief Revenue Officer of Slate. Kammerer is tasked with revenue strategy, as well as leveraging the capabilities at Slate Group Studios.

At Time, Inc. he was group publisher for Real Simple and This Old House. He was also publisher of This Old House, Golf Magazine and Golf.com.

Krammerer stated that Slate's audience is engaged in "world-class editorial," noting there is a desire "from consumers and marketers alike for the trusted environment that quality journalism produces.”

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