A group of Teen Vogue staff members raised concerns on Monday over decade-old racist tweets by their new editor in chief, Alexi McCammond.
Ms. McCammond, 27, a political reporter for Axios and a contributor for MSNBC and NBC, was named the top editor of the Condé Nast publication on Friday. Over the weekend, offensive tweets she had sent as a teenager in 2011 were recirculated on social media.
The tweets were originally uncovered in 2019, and Ms. McCammond apologized for them at the time, saying: “I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.”
In a note posted to Twitter on Monday night, a group of more than 20 Teen Vogue staff members said they had written a letter to Condé Nast management condemning Ms. McCammond’s “past racist and homophobic tweets.”
“In a moment of historically high anti-Asian violence and amid the on-going struggles of the LGBT community, we as the staff of Teen Vogue fully reject those sentiments,” the statement on Twitter read.
“We are hopeful that an internal conversation will prove fruitful in maintaining the integrity granted to us by our audience,” the statement said.
A Condé Nast spokesman said in a statement Monday that Ms. McCammond had been appointed editor in chief of Teen Vogue because “of the values, inclusivity and depth she has displayed through her journalism.”
“Two years ago she took responsibility for her social media history and apologized,” he said.
Ms. McCammond apologized on Monday for her tweets and for the social media backlash in a note sent to the staff, which was supplied by Condé Nast. She is scheduled to start at Teen Vogue on March 24.
“You’ve seen some offensive, idiotic tweets from when I was a teenager that perpetuated harmful and racist stereotypes about Asian Americans,” she wrote. “I apologized for them years ago, but I want to be clear today: I apologize deeply to all of you for the pain this has caused. There’s no excuse for language like that.”
Ms. McCammond added that she was committed to amplifying the voices of Asian-American and Pacific Islander women in the publication.
Ms. McCammond was in the headlines recently for her relationship with a White House deputy press secretary, T.J. Ducklo. The couple became involved while Mr. Ducklo was the press secretary for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign and Ms. McCammond was covering the campaign for Axios. Mr. Ducklo resigned from the White House in February after threatening a Politico reporter who was working on a story about the relationship.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
