In what has become one of the longer-running jokes in journalism, media critic Jack Shafer greets news of The Atlantic adding another high-profile writer to its staff with the same tweet every time: “The Atlantic is hiring all the journalists.”
If that sounds like hyperbole, in an era of cost-cutting and downsizing, it’s not. The venerable magazine has engaged in a stunning hiring spree that has given the rest of the journalism world a bad case of The Atlantic envy.
But that invites a simple question: What does The Atlantic know that the rest of the media world doesn’t? Or barring that, is its investment in talent merely the whim of a benevolent billionaire, owner Laurene Powell Jobs, who is providing editor Jeffrey Goldberg with enviable resources while viewing the bottom line as a secondary concern?
The Atlantic’s posture certainly stands out when juxtaposed with the steady drip of layoffs surrounding news outlets, both big and small. In the last three years, more than 10,000 journalism positions have been eliminated in the U.S., according to Nieman Reports, with cuts at CNN, NBC, HuffPost and Vox in 2025 adding to the pain and raising questions about the state of the industry.
The cuts have forced news organizations to make tough choices, not just in terms of body count, but also the kind of reporting they provide. Specialists are considered a luxury, while densely reported pieces often take a back seat to those designed to gin up traffic to keep the lights on.
This isn’t the case at The Atlantic.
“A key to our success is to make as many highest-quality stories we can, and to get as many readers as we can to pay us to read them,” Goldberg told TheWrap. “In order to do that, you have to have faith that there’s a wide readership for the sort of stories that I’m talking about — and thank God, it’s working.”
The contrast between The Atlantic’s stepped-up staffing and the parade of big names leaving the Washington Post has been particularly striking, and helped call attention to the magazine’s addition of new recruits — swooping in to capitalize on changes at the Post. The newspaper’s ranks have considerably thinned due to a mix of cost measures, questionable editorial policies and disenchantment with management, fueled in part by an “Our way or the highway” ultimatum issued by Post CEO Will Lewis, encouraging employees to get on board with the paper’s “reinvention” or get out.
At the same time, The Atlantic has gotten bigger, and is still in hiring mode. That included four editorial additions on Thursday — among them another Post alum, editor Katie Zezima — while upping Jonathan Lemire from contributor to staff writer. Overall, the magazine has added nearly 40 editorial positions this year, a stunning contrast to the state of most newsrooms.
According to a report in New York magazine, many of those brought on have commanded high-end journalism salaries of $200,000 to $300,000. The Atlantic declined to comment on that, but the sheer number of new faces gracing its pages, including well-known Post bylines like Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, fosters doubt about whether such a business model can hold, even in the face of impressive subscriber numbers of 1.3 million.
If not, skeptics wonder, how heavily is The Atlantic relying on Powell Jobs’ continued willingness to bankroll all that overhead?
In an interview, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson said the magazine is both profitable and committed to a sustainable formula, while acknowledging that enlightened ownership represents a key ingredient to its success. As of now, the scorecard includes 1.3 million subscribers who pay on average $80 annually, plus about 500,000 of whom pay the additional $10 — or $90 total — to get the print magazine, which last year expanded back to 12 issues a year from 10.
“What I think is maybe a little bit different about here is we’ve kind of built the business around what the editorial team most wants to do, instead of trying to force the editorial team to do what we think we can best sell,” Thompson told TheWrap.
According to Thompson, that approach applies to new hires, which has given Goldberg the freedom to snag talent as they become available. That’s not always the case in some newsrooms, particularly as owners more heavily scrutinize the bottom line.
“He doesn’t ask for approval,” Thompson explained, describing the relationship as follows: “‘Jeff, this is the amount of money I think you can spend. Go spend it.’ And then I model backwards how much revenue all of that’s going to bring in.”
It’s also a model that flies in the face of SEO and aggregation plays that define much of the industry, focusing on quality over tonnage in an effort to reach — and hang onto — discerning subscribers. But given the dire straits of the news business, those old practices are ripe for disruption.
Cultivating talent and raising ambitions
For those interested in the future of journalism, and its role in a functional society, questions about The Atlantic’s aggressive hiring — and the economics surrounding them — are more than just academic. While the Post has supplanted its “Democracy Dies in Darkness” mission statement, the 168-year-old Atlantic has been sipping at the fountain of youth, and increasingly feels like one of a few bastions treating the profession as a noble calling, cultivating A-list talent and strengthening its competitive ambitions.
Shafer said watching the parade of heavy hitters joining the magazine reminds him of “Citizen Kane,” when William Randolph Hearst stand-in Charles Foster Kane looks admiringly at the staff of a better-established rival and, a bit later, hires them all away.
“Outside of the New York newspapers at the turn of the previous century, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a news organization that so aggressively went out and head-hunted a bunch of stars and filled their newsroom with them,” Shafer told TheWrap. “So it’s somewhat anomalous in the contemporary setting.”
Despite the steady drip of new faces, Goldberg put the overall editorial staff at under 200, noting perception of an overflowing newsroom has raced ahead of reality because “we tend to hire pretty well-known journalists.” Overall, he said, the growth is proceeding at “a steady and sober pace. We’re definitely in an expansion mode, but I don’t want to over-dramatize it.”
Capitalizing on the Washington Post exodus
Numerous former Post standouts have joined The Atlantic in this calendar year, with the roster of those poached (some after taking buyouts) including Parker, Scherer, Sally Jenkins, Isaac Stanley Becker, Nick Miroff, Shane Harris, Missy Ryan and Jenna Johnson.
Those Post alumni join what was already a blue-chip roster featuring the likes of Mark Leibovich, Tim Alberta and McKay Coppins, to name a few.
Thompson noted The Atlantic is “having a very good moment,” emitting the journalistic equivalent of a tractor beam pulling writers in. As for capitalizing on struggles happening elsewhere, he said, “There’s an opportunity, because some of the publications are having trouble, but it’s also, importantly, strategic, where the Washington Post could be in an entirely different place and we would still be hiring a lot this year.”
Goldberg sounded a bit less diplomatic about the relationship between the Post’s travails, and what some have called the “exodus” of major names, and The Atlantic’s growth. (Goldberg started his career at The Post, as a police reporter.)
“If the Washington Post had not been undergoing an existential crisis, I wouldn’t have had the same hiring opportunities that I’ve had in the last six months,” he said. “I’m not happy about the Washington Post’s implosion. I love the Washington Post. I wish it were stronger. That said, if great journalists want to come to The Atlantic, I’m happy to welcome them.”
Money isn’t the only reason top writers are making that calculation. Another is the perceived erosion of support as media owners from Los Angeles to Washington have caved to pressure from the Trump administration, or sought to curry favor with a litigious and transactional president.
Powell Jobs appears more courageous — Goldberg cited the advantages of “strategically patient and brave ownership” — amid the weak-kneed responses from some of her billionaire brethren. In bending to the Trump-driven political winds, owners like the Post’s Jeff Bezos and L.A. Times’ Patrick Soon-Shiong have dispensed with the fantasy about benevolent moguls emerging as White Knights to “save” journalism.
“She’s not one of those owners who runs scared of anything, actually, especially the things that seem to scare other journalism proprietors these days,” Goldberg said. “Knock on wood, I feel very lucky right now.”
Thompson insists Powell Jobs isn’t strictly acting altruistically and expects the enterprise to turn a profit. Beyond that, though, he maintained it’s “absolutely the best-case ownership scenario, where you have someone who provides thoughtful advice, helps you when you need her and never, never weighs in in the kind of way you don’t want your owner to weigh in. She’s never telling Jeff, ‘Don’t write this story,’ because it affects a friend. She just says, ‘Go do the best work you can,’ and then helps us in places where we need it.”
That ethos has become another factor in the magazine’s emergence — during a “very challenging moment” for journalism, Goldberg noted, when reporters have seen their management wilt under pressure from Trump, either to curry favor on other fronts or out of expediency. “People who should be brave aren’t,” Goldberg said, noting that “Do you guys get the backup you need?” is among the questions potential new hires have asked him.
The magazine’s reputation received one lift by accident, when Goldberg was inadvertently included in what was supposed to be a top-secret chat regarding military plans for airstrikes in Yemen.
After what came to be known as “Signalgate,” The Atlantic notched its highest week for new subscriptions in March, although it has recorded double-digit annual circulation increases each of the last two years.
As Puck’s Dylan Byers wrote, The Atlantic’s investment in journalists amid cutbacks — and the rise in subscriptions rewarding that strategy — represents “a small if positive sign that the publishing business is trying to figure out how to solve its problems rather than bemoan them.”
Such a solution clearly isn’t for everyone, but The Atlantic’s additions also create possibilities for a different kind of “reinvention,” to use the word bandied about by the Post’s Lewis. In this case, that means the potential to draw on experienced beat reporters to break more news while still providing the kind of detailed, meticulously written analysis and think pieces associated with the physical pages of the magazine.
Combining newspapering and magazines
“I want to do it all,” Goldberg said of balancing those coverage areas. “If we do this right, we can combine the best qualities of newspapering and the best qualities of magazine making and create something different and new.”
The latitude to do that, Goldberg added, comes courtesy of Powell Jobs, to the extent that the big advantage of a far-sighted owner is “you get the runway to try things that people haven’t tried before.”
While comparisons to Hearst only go so far, Powell Jobs — who also champions entrepreneurs and innovators “driven by purpose and a sense of possibility” through her Emerson Collective — could be seen as one of those singular figures should the magazine deliver on its promise, using those deep pockets to support journalism at what feels like a dire moment.
“There’s a long history in American journalism of a filthy rich person entering the media business, hoping to make money, but largely hoping to make an impact,” Shafer noted, adding in regard to Powell Jobs, “What she wants, maybe, is to make a great journalistic enterprise, damn what it costs her.”
Thompson and Goldberg admit they spend a lot of time trying to see around corners, anticipating what potholes lie ahead, from AI to even stiffer headwinds than the ones the profession faces now.
Noting that some economic planks of the journalism business continue to shrink, Thompson said. “If you can make them go down more slowly, you’re in a better place, and you have more time to have other things go up, right? And if you just hide it, yell at it or despair, you’re cooked.”
Count events among extensions designed to showcase those journalists, including the annual Atlantic Festival, which moves to New York in September and will feature the premiere of Ken Burns’ latest PBS docuseries “The American Revolution.”
What The Atlantic looks determined to avoid are the self-inflicted wounds that have beset competitors, counting on the belief people will pay for quality fare. And in journalism during Trump 2.0, just holding firm might be enough to widen the gap — certainly as an employment destination and source for thoroughly reported news — versus outlets already receding, if not outright buckling.
“These are large and important institutions, but they turn out to be quite fragile,” Goldberg said. “I have journalists all over the planet now wanting to be here. There’s a lot of demand out there for jobs at The Atlantic.”
Even if, with apologies to Shafer, he can’t hire all of them.
