CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Lydia Polgreen, New Openly Lesbian Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post

It's not every week our Celebrity Friday subject can be an out lesbian of color. However, that is the case this week since The Huffington Post has named an open lesbian of color to be their new Editor-in-Chief! Lydia Polgreen, 41, the editorial dirctor of NYT Global at the New York Times is replacing former editor-in-chief (and founder) Arianna Huffington as the head of one of the most significant digital publications in the world.

This is how the Huffington Post reported the news of Polgreen's appointment:

In an interview, Polgreen said it was difficult leaving the Times, where she spent nearly 15 years, but that the role at HuffPost was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“I feel like we’re living in a moment right now where media has to fundamentally rethink its position vis-a-vis power,” she said. “I think that the election of Donald Trump and the basic difficulty that the media had in anticipating it tells us something really profound about the echo chamber in which we live, the ways in which journalism has failed to reach beyond its own inner limits.”
Polgreen described HuffPost as a “truly great global, progressive news platform,” though not in a purely political sense. She said the site has the “potential and the possibility of really meeting this populist moment that we’re living in and meeting people where they actually are.”
“The DNA of The Huffington Post is fundamentally progressive, but I think that has a really capacious meaning and comes to include so many of the things that motivated not just the people who were rah rah Bernie or who voted for Hillary Clinton, but also many, many people in the United States who voted for Trump, who have fundamental concerns about the way the country is moving and the future,” she said.
Originally launched in 2005 as a progressive alternative to the Drudge Report, HuffPost has grown into a Pulitzer Prize-winning news and opinion site boasting 17 international editions, including its most recent launch in South Africa.
Polgreen has extensive international experience, including serving as the Times’ West Africa bureau chief, South Asia bureau chief and Johannesburg bureau chief, where she covered major events such as the death of Nelson Mandela. She has also served as deputy international editor and helped oversee the launch of The New York Times en Español. In April, Polgreen became editorial director for NYT Global, part of a $50 million investment to grow the paper’s reach into multiple international markets.

Hat/tip G-Listed