The editor-in-chief of The Advocate, Zach Stafford, and his counterpart at Out magazine, Phillip Picardi, have announced on the same day they are leaving their respective posts.
Stafford, who is also a co-host of Buzzfeed’s AM2DM morning talk show, hasn’t made a statement about his departure, but Picardi shared the news on Twitter:
Today marks my last day at @outmagazine, just one year after I started. This journey has been shorter and more complex than I hoped, but it has been an honor to helm this title, and a deeper honor to lead such an incredibly talented team of LGBTQ+ people. pic.twitter.com/r0eq7n6ZUp
— pfpicardi (@pfpicardi) December 11, 2019
Both Out and The Advocate are owned by Pride Media.
And speaking of Pride Media, the company’s interim CEO, Orlando Reece, is also heading for the exit.
NBC News reports that Pride Media “has been plagued by reports of unpaid invoices by freelance journalists.”
“Earlier this year, the National Writers’ Union announced a suit against Pride Media on behalf of 25 freelancers who were then allegedly owed over $40,000 for work that Pride Media published, but did not pay for. This suit and other efforts used the social media hashtag #OutOwes to draw attention to the issue.”
LGBTQ journalist John Paul Brammer, who pens the popular Hola Papi column for Out, recently acknowledged those issues on Twitter sharing he’s currently due several months of pay from the company.
A day later he tweeted a reply from Pride Media indicating his invoices were in the system but there’s “no date for payment yet.”
I've turned my column in on time every week for the past two years and I was just told there's not a set date yet for my overdue invoices from September through November to be paid lol
— JP (@jpbrammer) December 10, 2019
ok thanks pic.twitter.com/ASkVP7coe0
— JP (@jpbrammer) December 12, 2019
