Alexi McCammond, a political reporter at Axios whose relationship with a White House aide was recently in the headlines, will be the next editor in chief of Teen Vogue, Condé Nast announced Friday.
Ms. McCammond, 27, made her name covering the 2018 midterm elections and Joseph R. Biden’s presidential campaign for Axios, a site known for its punchy Beltway coverage. She has also been a frequent contributor to NBC and MSNBC. In her new role, she will lead the Teen Vogue team across digital, video and social media. Her start date is March 24.
The appointment of Ms. McCammond to the top Teen Vogue job suggests that the publication, which stopped publishing regular print issues in 2017, will continue to be a venue for political reporting and commentary, in addition to its coverage of fashion, beauty and culture. Teen Vogue expanded its purview during the political rise of Donald J. Trump, winning plaudits for essays like Lauren Duca’s “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America” in 2016.
Ms. McCammond succeeds Lindsay Peoples Wagner, the editor in chief of Teen Vogue since 2018, who in January was appointed to the top job at New York Magazine’s style website, The Cut. Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and Condé Nast’s chief content officer, said in a statement that Ms. McCammond had “the powerful curiosity and confidence that embodies the best of our next generation of leaders.”
Ms. McCammond was a secondary figure in an early test for the Biden administration that centered on her boyfriend, T.J. Ducklo, who resigned last month from his job as a deputy White House press secretary.
They started dating when she was covering the Biden campaign and Mr. Ducklo was its press secretary. Earlier this year, Politico told Mr. Ducklo, who has battled lung cancer, that it planned to write an item on the relationship. As Vanity Fair later reported, Mr. Ducklo tried to intimidate the Politico reporter writing the article, Tara Palmeri, telling her: “I will destroy you.”
Before the Politico item appeared, People published an exclusive, feel-good account of the affair under the headline “Reporter Forgoes Covering President as Romance Blossoms with Biden Aide Battling Cancer: ‘Didn’t Think Twice.’”
After Mr. Ducklo’s treatment of the Politico reporter became public, the White House announced that it had suspended him. The next day, after many commentators noted President Biden’s earlier pledge to fire any staff member who behaved in a disrespectful manner, Mr. Ducklo resigned.
Ms. McCammond joined Axios in 2017 after a stint at the website Bustle. In 2019, the National Association of Black Journalists named her the emerging journalist of the year. She said in a statement that she looked forward to working with the Teen Vogue team to “build a unique community of ambitious, curious and fashion-forward young leaders.”
In January, Teen Vogue had 10.8 million unique viewers online, according to Condé Nast, a 21 percent jump over the previous year.