Matt Duckor, Condé Nast’s head of lifestyle video programming, is no longer with the media company. His exit comes after staffers claimed that Condé Nast failed to feature people of color in videos and did not pay them for appearances, and after a series of Duckor’s old tweets with racist and homophobic comments were recirculated online.
Duckor’s departure Wednesday comes two days after Adam Rapoport quit as editor-in-chief of Bon Appetit, following allegations of racial discrimination at the brand (including that the magazine has paid only white editors for video appearances) and the emergence of a photo of him in a Halloween costume depicting Puerto Rican stereotypes.
A Condé Nast spokeswoman confirmed Duckor is no longer with the company; she declined to provide further comment.
Duckor oversaw the team responsible for the video programming and strategy for Bon Appétit, Epicurious, Condé Nast Traveler, Architectural Digest, Vogue, Self, Allure and Glamour.
In a memo Wednesday, Condé Nast Entertainment president Oren Katzeff told staff that Duckor was out and that the company was in the process of identifying an interim replacement, as first reported by Business Insider.
“First, I want to thank you for your honesty and candor over these last many days. It takes courage and conviction to bring forward the issues you’ve experienced and the ideas on our needed changes at CNE,” Katzeff wrote. “We’ve already started the process of reviewing our practices and over the next week we’ll be bringing forward a plan of action centered on diversity and inclusion.”
Katzeff said Condé Nast will work to improve “talent selection and hiring (both in front of and behind the camera)” as well as its overall programming strategy for compensation practices. Katzeff, meanwhile, has posted embarrassing and offensive comments on Twitter about women and Mexicans, which he has deleted and apologized for, the Daily Beast reported.
On Monday, Sohla El-Waylly, who was hired last year as an assistant editor at Bon Appetit, alleged that only white editors are paid to make video appearances for the magazine’s digital channels. She said she was hired at a salary of $50,000 to “assist white editors with significantly less experience than me.” (Condé Nast denied that non-white employees are not paid for video appearances.)
One hour after El-Waylly’s post, Duckor contacted her with an offer to increase her now-$60,000 base salary by $20,000, BI reported. El-Waylly said she was “insulted and appalled” by the offer, per the report.
After the controversy erupted at Bon Appetit, older tweets by Duckor — who had been with Condé Nast since 2011 — were posted online. In one, he said, “tough day meeting with loads of hot Asian women with Anna not being able to say anything about you checking them out… yeah, rough.” In another, he wrote, “@SamSifton are you in Harlem with the black people and Asian same-sex couples? #kidding #diversity.” Duckor also once tweeted, “Amazing. ‘Gay men use the gym as a place to socialize and to have secret liaisons in the bathrooms.’ WORKING OUT IS SO GAY.”
this you?? pic.twitter.com/3RiMso2RRt
— mattia (@matghisolfi) June 9, 2020
Duckor’s Twitter account has since been taken private. On Tuesday, he apologized for the offensive old tweets, saying in a Twitter thread, “My words were inappropriate and hurtful. At the time, I thought I was making a joke.”
Prior to joining Condé Nast, Duckor was at NBC News where he edited the food and restaurants vertical for NBC Local Media’s The Feast. Duckor holds a BFA in dramatic writing from New York University, according to his LinkedIn profile.
