Has Vanity Fair Tainted its Well-Intentioned Africa Issue?
Vanity Fair’s July issue is devoted to raising awareness in Africa. Guest edited by Bono, the magazine has 20 different covers featuring celebrities and cultural figures like Brad Pitt, Madonna, Maya Angelou, Oprah and President Bush involved in a game of telephone.
The magazine has been debated because it naturally raises the question of whether the use of celebrities in social campaigns raises awareness or trivializes the issue. Some see it as a positive step – some awareness is better than nothing while others are less optimistic. I personally tend to fall into the former camp. Bono has clearly made the business decision of using celebrities to sell the magazine, but he has also equally given attention to both creating awareness about issues afflicting Africa like AIDs and civil war while celebrating and focusing on progress.
What bothers me about the issue isn’t the issue itself but what comes packaged in the UK edition of Vanity Fair. If you live in the UK or happen to spend the £3.80 at the airport, you will open up the plastic wrapper and find nestled in between the Africa issue and an advertisement to buy all twenty covers an additional issue of Vanity Fair entitled, Fire and Ice: “72 pages of ravishing rocks, ginormous gems and fancy fripperies”.
Now most people who are somewhat socially conscious or have even seen the movie Blood Diamonds would know that the gem trade in Africa has lead to many social and environmental problems in parts of the continent. The decision to package the two magazines together – with no mention anywhere of the gems issue on the Africa issue – seems at the very least, tacky and even offensive.
What could the UK editorial staff at Vanity Fair be thinking? Given that it’s competitive and a high-end publication, it’s very hard to believe nobody flagged this as a dubious editorial decision. It seems that the only reason Vanity Fair would have made the decision was for business reasons.
Was this the right decision? I haven’t seen online any major response to the decision, and I’m sure the issue is selling well. However, I believe packaging a diamond issue alongside an Africa issue of Vanity Fair puts the magazine’s credibility up for question. It shows disrespect to the thoughtfulness used to create the Africa issue. Worse, it puts the credibility of participating celebrities who have spoken out against the diamond trade like Oprah in question. Hopefully, as the issue makes its way into the households of Vanity Fair readers in the UK, we will begin to see some response. This is after all a world where consumers now have a greater voice. It’s now up to us to exercise it.
Tags: active consumer, africa, bono, social justice, Vanity Fair
June 24th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I think it’s a tacky move, unless they are advertising ethical bling. If they had used it as an opportunity to talk about conflict-free gems than it would have been a nice tie-in.
Also we should remember that in addition to places where the diamond trade is funding civil wars and otherwise contributing to mayhem, there are countries like Botswana who have greatly benefited from diamond mining.
From the CIA World Factbook (Botswana):
“Botswana has maintained one of the world’s highest economic growth rates since independence in 1966, though growth slowed to 4.7% in 2006. … Diamond mining has fueled much of the expansion and currently accounts for more than one-third of GDP and for 70-80% of export earnings.”