The Atlantic Grows Politics & Policy Team: Elaina Plott Hired as Staff Writer, Reihan Salam Becomes Contributing Editor

Washington, D.C. (January 8, 2017)—The Atlantic is adding two voices to its political coverage: Elaina Plott will join the publication as a staff writer and Reihan Salam has signed on as a contributing editor. Plott and Salam will begin writing for The Atlantic at the end of January.

As a staff writer, Plott will primarily focus on covering Congress and national politics, augmenting the political reporting The Atlantic has been significantly expanding over the past two years. She joins The Atlantic from Washingtonian where she was a staff writer. Before that, she was a Buckley Fellow at National Review. Her writing has appeared in the New York Observer, GQ, and Harper’s Bazaar.

Salam, who remains the executive editor of National Review, will write frequently for The Atlantic on all manner of U.S. and international politics. This a return to The Atlantic for Salam, who wrote for the magazine as an associate editor from 2008-2010. Salam is a contributing editor of National Affairs, and has worked for NBC News, The New York Times, the Council on Foreign Relations, and The New Republic. He’s also on the board of the Breakthrough Institute and an advisor to the Niskanen Center.

2017 was a year of significant audience growth for The Atlantic. Monthly unique visits to TheAtlantic.com grew nearly 30% year over year, with the month of May setting a new monthly record of 42.3 million unique visitors (Omniture). The Atlantic also reached its highest print circulation in a decade, with more than 570,000 subscriptions.

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