My soapbox: In this digital age, when unverified claims run rampant on social media, fact-checking can no longer be a responsibility reserved solely for journalists. The internet is largely unregulated and everyone online has a duty to exercise judgment before believing what you see

A decade after the fake quote first popped up, I continue to see it shared every single day across social media. I'd never personally dug into the magazine archives or spoken with our '90s-era reporters to debunk it myself, but I can now corroborate first hand that this has no basis

And you can't cover TV without covering buzzy shows like South Park that are riffing off current events

For people to understand pop culture in 2025, they have to understand what's happening in politics, and ideally outlets are keeping readers up to speed with major politics headlines along the way

People seem confused why lifestyle & celeb outlets are
"getting political," but it's pretty simple. You can't cover Bad Bunny w/o explaining why half the country is mad at him. You can't cover travel w/o covering a historically long govt shutdown that impacted flights during leaf-peeping season⤵️

Hoping that the media industry finds its footing again soon so we stop seeing these layoffs and editorial pivots every few days. For now, wishing speedy job offers for all the hardworking journalists impacted by the recent cuts at Teen Vogue, CBS, NBC, People, etc. etc.

Like lots of "soft news" outlets, Teen Vogue had a small politics team with a tall order, yet their audience steadily came to expect a digestible dose of politics in the mag's coverage. Cutting this 1 salary could mean isolating a chunk of future leaders from a transitional moment in U.S. politics

The call worked!