Equalpride, the LGBTQ+ publishing house of legacy outlets like Out Magazine and The Advocate, has acquired Them from Condé Nast just days after laying off several staffers and top editorial leaders across its brands.
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch confirmed the sale of its LGBTQ+ magazine in a memo to company staffers on Friday.
“Over the years, the team at Them has built a publication of real consequence, covering the defining cultural and political issues facing the LGBTQ+ community with rigor and care,” he wrote. “We believe Equalpride is uniquely positioned to build on that foundation, strengthening the business while preserving the editorial identity that has made the brand essential.”
A Condé Nast spokesperson did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on the sale or its financial terms. Equalpride did not respond to a request for comment.
Them, led by Editor-in-Chief Fran Tirado and with its dedicated focus on LGBTQ+ issues, represented an outlier among Condé Nast’s stable of publications, which includes Vogue, The New Yorker, Wired and GQ. Condé Nast launched the outlet in 2017, and it has since amassed more than 1.3 million followers on Instagram.
Lynch said in his memo that the company was focused on areas where “we have clear competitive advantages and the strongest path to long-term growth.” For outlets that don’t meet that threshold, the company would explore partnerships, he wrote. Glamour and Self are among the outlets under consideration for partnerships, Lynch told the Financial Times in an interview published on Friday.
The sale of Them came days after Equalpride laid off several staffers and editors from Out, The Advocate and Pride.com. Rachel Shatto, who served as Pride.com’s editor-in-chief since 2021, wrote on LinkedIn this week that her final day was last week.
“It’s a period of my life I’m looking back on with enormous satisfaction and humility,” she wrote. “It meant the world to me to be part of a publication that made joy its core ethos and told stories that uplifted as much as they informed and entertained.”
Other departures included Advocate editor-in-chief Alex Cooper, Out Magazine community editor Marie-Adélina de la Ferrière, Out associate editor Moises Mendez and Out and Advocate contributor Mey Rude, among others.
The sale comes amid a broader retreat from diversity-based reporting from news publishers, and it follows Condé Nast folding publications like Teen Vogue and Pitchfork into Vogue and GQ, respectively.
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