News

Are You a $300,000 Writer?

nymag.com · last updated
Every Tuesday afternoon, many of The Atlantic’s newest, biggest stars gather for a meeting of what is called “the A-Team.” The Google Calendar invite goes out to 18 staffers, more than half of whom joined the magazine in the past six months and almost all of whom have been poached from the Washington Post, including Ashley Parker, Isaac Stanley Becker, Nick Miroff, Shane Harris, Missy Ryan, Jenna Johnson, and Michael Scherer. More veteran Atlantic heavyweights like Mark Leibovich, Tim Alberta, McKay Coppins, and Elaina Plott also are invited, as are the top brass, including editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg and his deputy, Adrienne LaFrance. The organizer of the meeting is Griff Witte, who joined The Atlantic from the Post in January as a managing editor to lead the politics and accountability team.

That’s what the A in A-Team technically stands for: accountability. But it’s not hard to see another connotation, as it also refers to a group of bigwig journalists who have been hired at enormous cost. Nor is it difficult to understand why others at the magazine, the B-teamers by implication, have been rolling their eyes at it.

The Atlantic has been on a hiring spree this year, announcing the addition of roughly 30 editorial staffers since January. Nine of them came from the Post, whose implosion under Jeff Bezos coincided swimmingly with The Atlantic’s drive to double down on political reporting during the second Trump administration. Posties were looking to jump ship, and The Atlantic, which last year became profitable

View full article

Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom

State of Play

As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies —  they are deploying an array of editorial responses. 

The Times and its critics  |  Washington Post mortem    

More information

Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model

State of Play

The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.

Artificial intelligence

More information

here today, more tomorrow

We’ve launched briefing.center with a focus on the press and media.

And we’ve added Citizen Cartwright, a daily quick-read news summary by veteran Washington journalist Linda Cartwright. We’ve also created a new voting rights knowledge center for Citizen Cartwright subscribers. (You can sign up for a dedicated morning email at citizencartwright.com.)

You can sign up here for full access to press and media and Citizen Cartwright on briefing.center.

You can use briefing.center as the center of your information management, or just one of your tools. We’re happy to discuss your information needs.

Sign up