A crackdown on ‘woke’ coverage is tearing Atlanta magazine apart

The publisher pushed back on their effort to present a modern picture of life in one of the Blackest, queerest cities in the South, calling it ‘divisive.’ Now, half the staff has quit.

On a hot Tuesday in late June, staffers at Atlanta magazine gathered for a tense meeting with longtime publisher Sean McGinnis. On his agenda: pronouns.

“Are we, as a matter of fact, now writing stories based upon preferred pronouns?” McGinnis asked, citing to a recent profile of a labor organizer. “‘She’ is referred to as ‘they’ throughout the story.”

One editor responded that using pronouns corresponding with a subject’s identity is standard journalistic practice, “not a left or right thing.” The publisher disagreed, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post: “People will think that that is taking a stance.”

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