July 28, 2025
Cori Murray is bringing her award-winning storytelling skills to EBONY Magazine’s executive team.
Award-winning journalist Cori Murray is joining EBONY Magazine as the legacy brand’s newest executive vice president of Editorial Content.
After 22 years at ESSENCE, including a two-year run as the magazine’s Deputy Editor from 2020 to 2022, Murray is taking her talents to EBONY, where she’ll serve as a “proud steward” in “moving Black forward,” she shared in an Instagram announcement.
“Eighty years ago, John H. Johnson and his wife Eunice Johnson built @ebonymagazine to amplify Black stories,” Murray wrote. “Today, in my new role as EVP, editorial content, I’m a proud steward of this legacy brand as it continues chronicling our voices and moving Black forward. Stay tuned for what’s ahead!”
A 2022 recipient of Black Women in Film’s ElevatHER Award for her dedication to telling “the untold stories of Black women,” Murray has dedicated herself to the art of journalism with a special focus on Black culture. Under Murray’s leadership, ESSENCE made history by winning its first American Society for Magazine Editors National Magazine Award for Photography in April 2022 and featuring a same-sex couple on its cover for the first time in its 52-year history.
Murray’s creative touch shaped ESSENCE’s Black Women in Hollywood Awards and its Oscars’ Week events, while her insights on the brand’s cultural impact were featured in the OWN docuseries Time of Essence and the two-time Webby-nominated Yes Girl! podcast. A respected cultural critic and member of the African American Film Critics Association, the Hampton University graduate has shared her expertise on Good Morning America, Access Hollywood, CNN, and MSNBC, and has also appeared in Ava DuVernay’s 2010 documentary My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip Hop.
A true cover story powerhouse, Murray has penned standout features for InStyle, Women’s Health, and EBONY, while also contributing to The Hollywood Reporter, Emmys.com, Apartment Therapy, and WWD’s Beauty Insider. Most recently, she featured the legendary Angela Bassett on the cover of EBONY in May, a taste of the star power and storytelling she’s set to bring in her new leadership role.
RELATED CONTENT: Ebony Magazine Forced Into Involuntary Bankruptcy
