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Dr. Margena A. Christian was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a background of African American, Cherokee Indian, and German. I was lucky enough to interview her about some of the work done by her. Christian founded and owns DocM.A.C. write Consulting. Full interview here. Part 1 of this GMP series here and part 2 here. These can be read as a series. However, they are stand-alone article interviews as well. Here we look at some of the professional work in editing, professional development, proofreading, and writing services with some insights through important stories covered and the diverse experience in her time writing throughout her career with some as blessings in disguise.
Christian, in her dissertation research, wanted to know the ways in which John H. Johnson was using the magazines produced by him in adult education. An adult education oriented in order to combat forms of intellectual racism.
She found that he educated different races around the world on the forms of intellectual racism. Christian’s professional life portion of the interview moved into the senior editor and senior writer roles at EBONY.
As well, she was an editor of Elevate and the features editor for Jet magazine. She also helped with the inauguration of the EBONY retrospective. She described the features editor position as being in charge of pitching and writing and editing human interest stories.
Christian also helped with selecting and securing the high-profile folks figured within the publication.
“Elevate was a section in EBONY that focused on health, wellness and spirituality,” Christian explained, “EBONY’s Retrospective was an opportunity for me to marry my love of entertainment with my interest in historical data by examining pivotal cultural moments in music, movies and TV that shaped my race.”
As I asked about the abilities, knowledge, and skills developed from the editorial and writing experiences, I gained an insight into the peripheral and central aspects of the work.
If someone edits or writes, they work within a lens of the work alone. They also garner contacts and networks from the work, too. Christian talked about learning an art.
The art of multi-tasking and having steady relationships. It is important to focus on who knows you and returns the call. I suppose this can be interpreted to mean those who spend the time to consider you important to them as you consider them important to you.
One part of the publication for Jet magazine skills was an expectation. The ability to do due diligence in meeting a weekly deadline.
“This included tracking down sources, doing research, conducting interviews, writing stories and editing. Early on I handled images for both EBONY and Jet by operating the Associated Press photo machine,” Christian stated, “including breaking it down and cleaning what was called the oven. Moving to EBONY in 2009 offered me a bit more time to work on lengthy features.”
For the Retrospective pieces, she was expected to produce something like 1,500 words, but “would force their hand at close to 3,000 words!”
Another aspect of this is the finding of a diverse set of interests to guide writing. Christian has an interest in education, fashion, finance, health, medicine, parenting, relationships, religion, and spirituality.
This does seem to require a certain self-insight, which Christian starts with the career at Jet magazine. All news editors had to write on every subject with Christian’s specialty as entertainment.
Mr. Johnson and his daughter, Linda, expressed an intrigue in written work about celebrities for EBONY. “I recalled being told by Mr. Johnson that rank determined who would talk to the notables at EBONY, so he thought Jet would be a better fit since all editors had an equal chance of doing stories about celebs,” Christian said.
After this period, she began to write on health. Christian did not like it, but did find this to be “a blessing in disguise” because she “secretly began to enjoy writing about this subject.”
Christian did cover the death of Michael Jackson and described this as a hard time while also recognizing this as a job to complete. She was transitioning to the company. However, bear in mind, she had also garnered varied experienced prior to the transition and the difficult work.
All important for the development of profession relevant skill sets. She documented some of the history. However, Christian’s interest was in the artist rather than the history of the man.
“I spent three weeks in Los Angeles, spending time at the Jackson family’s Encino compound, camped outside with the hundred other reporters from around the world,” Christian opined, “and driving for hours to Los Olivos to visit Neverland. I met a man during a church prayer service named Steve Manning, who was one of his best friends who first ran the Jacksons fan club back in the day.”
She continues to stay in touch with them. One year after Michael’s death, Steve happened to be at the Jackson home. She was able to speak with the Jackson mom, Katherine.
It was the weekend before Mother’s Day. Christian was tongued-tied. Janet sent a Christmas card one time to Christian, by the way.
Christian said, “The Jackson family grew up at Johnson Publishing Company and were close friends with Mr. Johnson. I felt honored when I was selected by the managing editor, Terry Glover, to document this important history. She knew what I brought to the table and that I would deliver.”
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Photo credit: Getty Images