News & Politics

Alexi McCammond Will Not Be Top Editor of Teen Vogue

Controversy over tweets from her college years sunk the former Axios reporter's move to Condé Nast.

Screenshot of a 2020 Alexi McCammond appearance on C-SPAN.

Alexi McCammond announced on Twitter Thursday that she will not be the next editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue:

McCammond was a political reporter at Axios before she accepted the job at publisher Condé Nast’s youth-focused publication, which mixes politics with coverage of fashion and culture, earlier in March. She covered Joe Biden’s campaign for President at Axios but switched beats because she was dating Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo. Ducklo resigned after Vanity Fair (which is published by Condé Nast) reported he’d threatened a Politico reporter who was looking into the relationship. While the White House initially responded by giving Ducklo a rather meaningless punishment, he resigned the day after the Vanity Fair story ran.

The announcement that McCammond would move to Teen Vogue was quickly overshadowed by racist tweets she’d published while in college that Teen Vogue staffers circulated. McCammond apologized and said she was “committed to amplifying” Asian American and Pacific Islander voices. The controversy came less than a year after Adam Rapoport resigned as editor-in-chief of the Condé Nast title Bon Appétit after a photo surfaced of him in brownface and several stars of Bon Appétit‘s Test Kitchen video series quit, citing unequal pay.

The retailer Ulta Beauty put a reportedly seven-figure ad campaign with Teen Vogue on hold in response to the controversy over McCammond’s tweets. Condé Nast has not yet replied to a request for comment about McCammond’s exit, but the Daily Beast reports the company shared an email from chief people officer Stan Duncan that said Condé Nast and McCammond had “agreed that it was best to part ways, so as to not overshadow the important work happening at Teen Vogue.”

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Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.