Kerry Diamond (Founder & Editor: Cherry Bombe)

05/30/24 • 41 min

THE CHERRY ON TOP

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Cherry Bombe is a full-course meal. Its founder, Kerry Diamond, created the magazine after working in titles like Women’s Wear Daily and Harper’s Bazaar, and after working for brands like Lancôme. And in the restaurant industry. She worked in restaurants at a time when everything culinary was in the ascendance in the zeitgeist.

That’s also when Diamond realized a key ingredient was missing. None of the brash rising stars at the table were women. She had also been hearing from women who found the going in that world challenging. This in an industry that is difficult for everyone to begin with. Out of this came Cherry Bombe.

Today, Cherry Bombe is a full-fledged and rising media empire. It’s a magazine, sure, but their menu also includes multiple podcasts and a series of wildly-successful events. Their community, called the “Bombe Squad,” meet each other on Zoom, at the events, and form a tightly-connected sisterhood of fans and evangelists for the brand.

Diamond makes it sound like she built all of this without a blueprint, and maybe she did. But just like the best recipes, sometimes the tastiest things are the result of the happiest accidents.

THE CHERRY ON TOP

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Diamond makes it sound like she built all of this without a blueprint, and maybe she did. But just like the best recipes, sometimes the tastiest things are the result of the happiest accidents.

Previous Episode

Mike Rogge (Editor & Owner: Mountain Gazette)

WELCOME TO THE GREAT OUTDOORS

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Mountain Gazette is one of those media ... things ... that only long-time fans really know about, with a long and colorful history. A kind of Village Voice of the outdoors, the first incarnation (1966) of the magazine was about mountains and for “mountain people”—a lifestyle magazine for those who weren’t interested in either coast, let alone cities, let alone New York.

Like many magazines, the Gazette succumbed to economic forces and shuttered. Twice. Until Mike Rogge, a journalist and film producer, and more important than that, an avid skier and outdoorsman, purchased the archives and the rights at a bar in Denver. The deal was drawn up on a napkin and consummated with a beer.

Mostly he bought it because it was there.

Rogge felt the media, specifically what he calls the outdoor media, was broken. Especially the advertising model. And he had grown tired of the arcane and opaque revenue streams of the digital world. So he decided to do his own thing. He rejected those models, and plowed into print.

And he went big. Literally. The result is a magazine that is a success in every sense of the word: aesthetically, editorially, and financially. It’s a black diamond in a magazine world that often feels like a series of bunny slopes.

But Mike Rogge and Mountain Gazette have proven something: you can have your mountain and ski it too.

Next Episode

Versha Sharma (Editor: Teen Vogue)

IT’S COMPLICATED

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If Teen Vogue’s editorial still surprises you, it might be time to admit that this says more about you than it does about Teen Vogue. And also, perhaps, that you haven’t been paying attention.

Teen Vogue is not the first magazine aimed at “the young” of course, and it’s not the first one to address multiple issues. But...Teen Vogue is the first, perhaps, to make a certain kind of noise.

Since well before the Trump presidency, but certainly turbocharged during it, Teen Vogue has mixed tips on fashion and beauty, profiles about the latest girl groups from Korea, and the scoop on the stars of Bridgerton, with political analysis and opinion, stories about identity and social justice, and an election primmer that is maybe one of the most thorough you’ll find anywhere.

Versha Sharma has been editor since 2021 and has not only maintained all the pillars that make up Teen Vogue but enhanced them. She came to Teen Vogue from overtly political media like Talking Points Memo, NowThis, Vocativ, and MSNBC. And she says she’s landed her dream job.

Sharma and her team are unabashed and unapologetic about what they do—and know that they are serving a large community of very active young women (65% of the readership) who follow the brand on every social channel imaginable, visit the website by the millions, and attend Teen Vogue Summits—in person!—to listen to their favorite influencers, singers, entrepreneurs, actors and activists talk shop.

Sharma feels like the luckiest editor in the industry. But one thing is missing: paper.

Teen Vogue discontinued its print edition more than seven years ago. Her new dream? Convincing her bosses at Condé Nast to bring it back.