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Pardon the interruption, but I’m breaking into our regular programming to share some good news about The Atlantic.
First, here are three new stories that are worth your time:
Excellent News
For the third consecutive year, the American Society of Magazine Editors has bestowed upon The Atlantic its top prize, the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. This is a tremendous honor. Only one other magazine has been awarded this prize three times in a row, and that was more than 25 years ago. The competition was tough. We were up against a raft of excellent magazines: The New Yorker, New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and The Economist’s 1843 magazine.
It is particularly gratifying to note that this was not the only award The Atlantic won last night. Three of our staff writers won National Magazine Awards for their stellar work: Tim Alberta, one of America’s most gifted feature writers, received the top prize in profile writing, for his incisive and influential profile of Chris Licht, the now-former head of CNN. Sophie Gilbert, a critic of exceptional discernment and acuity, won the top prize in reviews and criticism, for her brilliant work on pop culture and feminism. And Jennifer Senior won the top prize in columns and essays for her beautifully elegiac story about her aunt Adele, who was institutionalized by her family as a toddler because of an intellectual disability and left to wither for decades in terrifying facilities before landing in a supportive group home in middle age. Tim and Sophie were first-time finalists for the National Magazine Award. For Jen, this was a repeat trip to the podium; she has been a finalist each of the past three years, and she won the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing two years ago, for her story on the aftermath of 9/11 (it’s worth noting that she also won the Pulitzer Prize for that story). The general view across our industry, one that I endorse, is that Jen is doing some of the best writing in the English language today.
I’m also pleased to let you know that The Atlantic won the prize for best print illustration, for the portrait of our senior editor Jenisha Watts, by Didier Viodé. Jenisha herself was a first-time finalist in feature writing. Her gorgeous and brave cover story, “Jenisha From Kentucky,” is one of the best personal essays The Atlantic has ever published.
Our magazine’s special issue on Reconstruction, edited by Vann R. Newkirk II and John Swansburg, was a finalist in the single-topic-issue category, the first time The Atlantic has been so recognized. This issue was extraordinary. If you missed it, now is a good time to visit its stories (and an original play, This Ghost of Slavery, by our contributing writer Anna Deavere Smith).
All in all (and I apologize for the unseemly bragging), The Atlantic brought home more National Magazine Awards than any other publication.
Last year, when we won the prize for general excellence for the second consecutive time, I assumed we wouldn’t be able to keep up this streak. But my generally excellent colleagues keep outdoing themselves, and so the judges, though perhaps predisposed to grant this prize to a magazine with New York in its title, made what I consider to be the inevitably correct decision.
As some of you know, The Atlantic has had a run of positive news lately. The biggest development: We just recently crossed the 1-million-subscription threshold. This has never happened in our 167-year history. We are also, again, a profitable magazine company. This is important not merely because these developments allow us to pursue the most ambitious journalism possible but because we hope to show the world that it is possible to have an economically self-sustaining print-and-digital publication that is committed to producing only the best journalism. As I wrote last year, we realized that the way to differentiate The Atlantic in a crowded field is to make stories only of the highest quality and ambition. We sometimes fall short of our objective, but not for lack of trying.
Tomorrow, a return to your regular newsletter programming. For now, let me thank you, our readers and subscribers, for your loyalty and your commitment to the ideals of The Atlantic.
Read all of our National Magazine Award winners and finalists here.
Today’s News
- A 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan today, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 900 others. It is the strongest earthquake the country has experienced in the past 25 years.
- The University of Texas at Austin laid off at least 60 employees who had worked in roles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Austin American-Statesman reported yesterday. Texas passed an anti-DEI law last summer that went into effect in January.
- To replenish its forces, Ukraine lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25 for men and removed some draft exemptions.
Dispatches
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Evening Read
If Teenage Girls Ran America
By Shirley Li
Early in the new documentary Girls State, one of the participants in the titular leadership program for high schoolers chuckles after learning the camp song. She feels silly practicing the flashy choreography and rousing lyrics when the weeklong intensive is meant for building a mock government with other civic-minded teenagers. “If the boys don’t have to do this,” she says, “I’m going to be pissed.”
As it turns out, the boys don’t—and she’s not the only one miffed about the disparity between the sibling programs run by the veterans association American Legion. Girls State, which begins streaming on Apple TV+ this Friday, is a follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 documentary Boys State … But Girls State is much more than a gender-flipped version of the previous project. Instead, the film offers a sharp study of how a supposedly empowering environment can simultaneously inspire and limit aspiring female leaders.
More From The Atlantic
Culture Break
Don’t look away. “Sometimes, the sexiest thing two people can do on-screen is simply look at each other,” Sophie Gilbert wrote last year. What would we lose if Hollywood did away with intimate sex scenes?
Read. These seven books are best enjoyed while one relaxes at a park, a beach, or an open-air café on a sunny day.
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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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