Lucy Danziger

Lucy Danziger is a magazine editor, writer, well-being expert and content creator who is CEO of 10 Point Ventures, a digital content studio that works with brands, startups and media companies to help them reach their business goals. Danziger is the former American editor-in-chief of Self magazine and recently left her post as the Editorial Director of The Beet, a guide to plant-based healthy living. Danziger served as an editor-in-chief of Condé Nast Publications' Self from 2001 until 2014. After leaving Condé Nast she built and launched Hinted, a social shopping platform that allows users to make shoppable wish lists and return to purchase items when they want to or when their saved “hints” go on sale.

Background and career

After graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1978 and earning a Bachelor of Science in Art History from Harvard in 1982, Danziger worked as a general assignment reporter at the Star-Ledger of Newark for four years, covering everything from crime to court trials, business stories and local City Desk stories. She then became an associate editor at New York magazine. Later, she worked at the New York-based weekly 7 Days as the founding Managing Editor. She also served as the founding editor in chief of Women's Sports & Fitness from 1997 to 2000 and as an editor in the Style News Department at The New York Times before becoming editor-in-chief at Self in 2001. Danziger has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Outside, Condé Nast Traveler, Skiing, Allure, Time and USA Today. Danziger has appeared on several television shows, including Today, The View and Good Morning America.

Danziger oversaw the growth of Self.com to become a larger presence than the print magazine, and grew the website and magazine together to more than 12 million monthly unique users and readers. During her time at Self.com the Self Challenge became an online juggernaut, signing up hundreds of thousands of users to the three-month fitness program each Spring. Self, co-founder of the Pink Ribbon for breast cancer awareness, advocacy and prevention, also launched special issues dedicated to other health topics such as skin cancer, anti-smoking and smoking-cessation, and other ways women could take better care of their physical, mental and emotional health. After leaving SELF, Danziger continued to write, edit and advocate for healthy lifestyle changes and has launched several companies dedicated to giving women agency over their futures.

She launched Hinted as a social shopping platform, app and personal tool to allow users to save to wish lists what consumers want as they browse and shop. They save fashion, beauty, home items, as well as experiences like trips and wellbeing purchases such as gym classes. The platform launched an iOS app in late 20178 and surpassed over 300,000 users by the following year.

In 2019 Danziger launched a plant-based website called The Beet, for eating more plants. The site launched officially in January 2020 and grew to over 1 million unique visitors by May, 2020 and then nearly doubled by June of 2021. The Beet covers how to eat more plant-based foods for the sake of health and the environment. The Beet currently publishes 5 stories daily, including Recipe of the Day, has an app and a daily newsletter, The Daily Beet, with 100,000 subscribers.

Image Retouching

In 2009, Danziger approved a retouched cover photograph of singer Kelly Clarkson for the September issue of Self, slimming Clarkson's figure. Battling public backlash against retouching, Danziger asserted in her blog that it is a common practice for glossy magazines to retouch cover images. She defended the photograph, writing "This is a collaboration. It's not a news photograph . . . Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best. Did we publish an act of fiction? No. Not unless you think all magazine photos are that. But in the sense that Kelly is the picture of confidence, and she truly is, then I think this photo is the truest we have ever put on the newsstand."

Tutu Controversy

The April 2014 edition of Self contained a back page called the "BS Meter" that called out false claims such as one claim by a maker of tutus that his tutus made runners faster. The photo editor illustrated the item with a picture of San Diego runner Monika Allen in a tutu. The magazine had contacted Allen to ask for permission to use her photo but not the context. Allen, a cancer survivor who sold tutus for charity, contacted her local NBC affiliate and the story sparked backlash against Self and Danziger. Shortly after the incident, Condé Nast replaced her with Cosmopolitan executive editor Joyce Chang effective May 1, 2014. Two years after Chang took over, the company folded the print editions of Self, which continues to exist online.

External links

• SELF Magazine
• "Yahoo! Health Experts"