Teen Vogue lays off all political writers, folds back into parent publication

Former Teen Vogue staffers and fans slammed the publication on social media Monday after the magazine’s politics section and its team of progressive journalists were laid off. The outlet began their political coverage at the advent of the first Trump administration in 2016.

Teen Vogue will now focus on "career development, cultural leadership and other issues that matter most to young people." Vogue is a premiere fashion magazine and Teen Vogue diverted from the fashion mission after beginning as a place for a younger approach to couture and high fashion.

The move comes after Condé Nast, the publication’s parent company, announced that Teen Vogue would be folded under the Vogue.com umbrella, a restructuring that could be the end of the outlet. Both Condé Nast’s union and the NewsGuild of New York “strongly condemned” the decision, calling it “clearly designed to blunt the award-winning magazine’s insightful journalism at a time when it is needed the most.”

A statement to The Wrap read, “Condé leadership owes us, and Teen Vogue’s readership, answers. We will get those answers. And we fight for our rights as workers with a collective bargaining agreement as we fight for the work we do, and the people we do it for.”

As part of the changes, Teen Vogue’s editor-in-chief Versha Sharma was laid off, with Vogue’s new editorial content head, Chloe Malle, now overseeing both brands. Malle has also replaced long term Vogue editorial maven Anna Winotour. The outlet’s news and politics editor, Lex McMenamin, was also let go and wrote that there would be no political staffers remaining at Teen Vogue after the restructuring.

Former Teen Vogue reporter Emily Bloch said folding the youth magazine into Vogue.com represented “more than an absorption” of the brand. “We now know that the Teen Vogue fold is more than an absorption & clearly a full shift from the pub’s DNA,” she wrote on X. “Laying off the entire politics team a day before the NYC election is heinous + a knife in the back to a brand that has solidified its importance for youth. Devastating.”

She added in another post: “Laying off the Teen Vogue pol editor the day before a major election Teen Vogue has covered that is consequential to Teen Vogue’s main demographic … got it.” Malle said, however, that she was determined to "continuing and supporting its point of view and sensibility."

Former Teen Vogue style editor Aiyana Ishmael also confirmed that she was laid off, posting on Bluesky, “Now, there are no Black women at Teen Vogue and that is incredibly painful to think about,” she wrote on Bluesky. 

The union echoed that in a statement, saying "Management plans to lay off six of our members, most of whom are BIPOC women or trans, including Teen Vogue’s Politics Editor — continuing the trend of layoffs at Condé disproportionately impacting marginalized employees." They added that "Teen Vogue now has no writers or editors explicitly covering politics."

However, critics celebrated the news. One social media user praised the decision, writing, “Many they/thems out of a job. I voted for this.” The move caps years of controversy for Teen Vogue, which has faced criticism for the publication’s far-left influence on young readers. 

In 2021, Teen Vogue came under fire for publishing a favorable profile of an Antifa-aligned, police abolitionist Seattle City Attorney candidate, written by a reporter who also worked for the candidate’s campaign, without disclosing the conflict. In 2022, the outlet drew backlash for a holiday-season article aimed at teens on how to talk about abortion, which critics said promoted advice from abortion-rights organizations like Planned Parenthood.