Since their launch four years ago, the website Task & Purpose has built a strong following among veterans, military personnel and defense intellectuals by doing smart, unvarnished coverage of military issues and veterans’ affairs. It has 2.5 million monthly readers, making the resignation of the top editor over an alleged interference by the site’s CEO jarring.
The Atlantic writes that Adam Weinstein, the acting managing editor, announced in a tweet that he had resigned after the CEO and founder, Zach Iscol, had asked to change a headline. The story in question was a ProPublica investigation into Trump’s influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs. The piece referenced “three non-vet Mar-a-Lago members” running the agency. Weinstein said that this headline change request was just “the latest in a series of such demands over our editorial content.”
Some personal news: I just resigned as acting EIC of @taskandourpose after our publisher reamed us out for his investigation and demanded the headline be changed, the latest in a series of such demands over our editorial content. https://t.co/Ds6WrNd5qG
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) August 8, 2018
According to The Atlantic, it wasn’t the argument over the headline that made him quit, but the fact that Iscol had asked him to limit coverage of the Trump administration to once a week and to “be more conservative in the next couple of months.” Iscol denies these claims.
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