Publisher's Weekly Magazine Cover Draws Criticism, and Apology

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When Publishers Weekly released its new issue this week, with a cover story on African-American books, it illustrated the article with a photograph of a black woman whose hair is full of Afro picks, right, all of them molded to look like closed fists giving a black-power salute. 

 

Very quickly the magazine heard from readers and industry insiders who called the image offensive. (On the blog of the HarperCollins imprint HarperStudio, at theharperstudio.com, Julia Cheiffetz, its senior editor, reprinted the image, saying: "I found the cover of this week's Publishers Weekly disturbing. Am I the only one?") In a post on PublishersWeekly.com, Calvin Reid, the magazine's senior news editor, wrote that the photograph, titled "Pickin' " and taken by Lauren Kelley, came from the new book "Posing Beauty: African American Images From the 1890s to the Present" by Deborah Willis. Mr. Reid wrote, "To me it is a sweet, tongue-in-cheek funny and striking image of quirky black hair power." He added, "I certainly regret offending anyone and while I still love that image, I intend to think long and hard about whatever image is chosen for next year's cover."

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