Atlanta magazine has reportedly lost half its staff in recent weeks after employees were informed to stay away from “woke” and “divisive” issues that could alienate readers.
The Washington Post published an in-depth report on Wednesday that put a spotlight on a mass exodus after the publisher “pushed back on their effort to present a modern picture of life in one of the Blackest, queerest cities” in America.
Staffers of Atlanta magazine, which bills itself as the city’s “premier general interest publication,” gathered in June for a meeting with publisher Sean McGinnis, according to the Post. The meeting, which was described as “tense,” was an attempt for McGinnis to get to the bottom of how the magazine handles pronouns and other issues related to “divisive” topics.
“Are we, as a matter of fact, now writing stories based upon preferred pronouns? ‘She’ is referred to as ‘they’ throughout the story,” McGinnis asked, according to the Post, citing audio of the meeting it obtained.
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Editors reportedly pushed back, informing their boss that “using pronouns corresponding with a subject’s identity is standard journalistic practice” and not a political statement, but McGinnis disagreed.
“People will think that that is taking a stance,” McGinnis said, according to the Post.
Washington Post media reporter Laura Wagner noted it was “hardly the first time colleagues have disagreed over editorial choices — in Atlanta or anywhere in the media industry, where business concerns, personal politics, and news judgment often come into conflict,” but this time was different.
“McGinnis’s statements and subsequent request to approve editorial content ahead of publication marked a tipping point in a small-scale culture war that had been building for a few years within the award-winning magazine,” Wagner wrote. “Staffers saw the interference as an egregious…
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