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The Atlantic

The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.[3]

For the ocean, see Atlantic Ocean. For other uses, see Atlantic (disambiguation).

Editor-in-chief

  • Literature
  • political science
  • foreign affairs
  • lifestyle

Ten issues a year

925,872[1]

1857 (1857)

November 1, 1857 (1857-11-01) (as The Atlantic Monthly)

United States

English

1072-7825 (print)
2151-9463 (web)

It was founded in 1857 in Boston as The Atlantic Monthly, a literary and cultural magazine that published leading writers' commentary on education, the abolition of slavery, and other major political issues of that time. Its founders included Francis H. Underwood[4][5] and prominent writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Greenleaf Whittier.[6][7] James Russell Lowell was its first editor.[8] In addition, The Atlantic Monthly Almanac was an annual almanac published for Atlantic Monthly readers during the 19th and 20th centuries.[9] A change of name was not officially announced when the format first changed from a strict monthly (appearing 12 times a year) to a slightly lower frequency. It was a monthly magazine for 144 years until 2001, when it published 11 issues; it has published 10 issues yearly since 2003. It dropped "Monthly" from the cover beginning with the January/February 2004 issue, and officially changed the name in 2007.


After experiencing financial hardship and undergoing several ownership changes in the late 20th century, the magazine was purchased by businessman David G. Bradley, who refashioned it as a general editorial magazine primarily aimed at serious national readers and "thought leaders".[10] In 2016, the periodical was named Magazine of the Year from the American Society of Magazine Editors.[11] In July 2017, Bradley sold a majority interest in the publication to Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective.[12][13][14]


In 2021 and 2022, its writers won Pulitzer Prizes for feature writing and, in 2022, 2023, and 2024 it won the award for general excellence by the American Society of Magazine Editors.


The website's executive editor is Adrienne LaFrance, the editor-in-chief is Jeffrey Goldberg, and the CEO is Nicholas Thompson. The magazine publishes 10 times a year.[15] In 2024, it was reported that the magazine had crossed one million subscribers and become profitable after, three years prior, losing twenty million dollars a year and laying off 17% of its staff.

Political viewpoint[edit]

In 1860, three years into publication, The Atlantic's then-editor James Russell Lowell endorsed Republican Abraham Lincoln for his first run for president and also endorsed the abolition of slavery.[27]


In 1964, Edward Weeks wrote on behalf of the editorial board in endorsing Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson and rebuking Republican Barry Goldwater's candidacy.[28]


In 2016, during the 2016 presidential campaign, the editorial board endorsed a candidate for the third time in the magazine's history, urging readers to support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a rebuke of Republican Donald Trump's candidacy.[29]


After Trump prevailed in the November 2016 election, the magazine became a strong critic of him. In March 2019, a cover article by editor Yoni Appelbaum called for the impeachment of Donald Trump: "It's time for Congress to judge the president's fitness to serve."[30][31][32]


In September 2020, it published a story, citing several anonymous sources, reporting that Trump referred to dead American soldiers as "losers".[33] Trump called it a "fake story", and suggested the magazine would soon be out of business.[34][35]


In 2020, The Atlantic endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, and urged its readers to oppose Trump's re-election bid.[36]

In June 2006, the named The Atlantic one of the top ten English-language magazines, describing it as the "150-year-old granddaddy of periodicals" because "it keeps us smart and in the know" with cover stories on the then-forthcoming fight over Roe v. Wade. It also lauded regular features such as "Word Fugitives" and "Primary Sources" as "cultural barometers".[65]

Chicago Tribune

On January 14, 2013, The Atlantic's website published "" promoting David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology. While the magazine had previously published advertising looking like articles, this was widely criticized. The page comments were moderated by the marketing team, not by editorial staff, and comments critical of the church were being removed. Later that day, The Atlantic removed the piece from its website and issued an apology.[66][67][68]

sponsor content

In 2019, the magazine published an expose on the allegations against movie director that "sent Singer's career into a tailspin". It was originally contracted to Esquire magazine, but the writers moved it there due to what New York Times reporter Ben Smith described as Hearst magazines' "timid" nature. "There's not a lot of nuance here", Jeffrey Goldberg said. "They spiked a story that should have been published in the public interest for reasons unknown."[69]

Bryan Singer

In June 2020, The Atlantic faced legal action in Japan that claimed defamation and invasion of privacy in the article "When the Presses Stop" by , published in the January/February 2018 edition, which led to numerous corrections after a settlement was reached in January 2024. The lawsuit highlighted fact-checking and ethical concerns, bringing attention to the magazine's editorial practices.[70][71][72]

Molly Ball

On November 1, 2020, The Atlantic retracted an article, "The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among –Obsessed Parents", after an inquiry by The Washington Post. An 800-word editor's note said, "We cannot attest to the trustworthiness and credibility of the author, and therefore we cannot attest to the veracity of the article." The article's author, freelancer Ruth Shalit Barrett, had left the staff of The New Republic in 1999 amid allegations of plagiarism.[73][74] On January 7, 2022, Barrett sued the magazine for defamation. The lawsuit claimed The Atlantic misrepresented Barrett's background and destroyed her journalistic career through what it publicly said about her.[75][76] In legal filings, Barrett argued that The Atlantic's handling of allegations and errors in another article written by Molly Ball demonstrated inconsistency in the magazine's editorial standards and accountability measures. Barrett asserted that the factual inaccuracies and ethical violations in Ball's piece, as highlighted by a separate defamation lawsuit that resulted in a settlement and numerous corrections to the story, were “transgressions far more numerous and incomparably worse” than any mistakes attributed to her own work.[77][72]

Ivy League

On February 5, 2024, The Atlantic cut ties with well-known contributor after he was accused of rape. He called the allegation "categorically untrue."[78]

Yascha Mounk

flag 

United States portal

Official website

(archived 23 October 1997)

"A History of The Atlantic"

The Atlantic archival writings by topic

archive.org (earliest issues 1857 up to 2016)

Online archive of The Atlantic

Hathi Trust. digitized issues, 1857–

Atlantic Monthly

An early history of The Atlantic from The Literary Digest (1897)

at the University of Maryland libraries

Atlantic Monthly records