Clare Foran, a 2011 Penn graduate and former peer writing tutor, was recently named an associate editor of theatlantic.com, website for the venerable The Atlantic magazine.
Founded in 1857 in Boston as The Atlantic Monthly, the magazine originally focused on literary and cultural commentary. Now based in Washington, D.C., it features more general editorial content.
Foran, 26, who joined The Atlantic staff in November, covers politics and the 2016 presidential election. She previously worked at National Journal, where she wrote about climate change and the environment.
Asked to sum of the presidential race with a proposition, Foran says: “It is impossible to predict”. As for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, “the pundit class didn’t see his rise coming. It speaks to the disconnect between the ‘D.C. bubble’ and what’s happening in the country at large.”
In terms of how she writes, the biggest difference between The Atlantic and National Journal is in their respective audiences, says Foran, a History major who spent a year in France after graduation teaching English in a “tiny” town outside Rouen.
National Journal is aimed at an inside-the-Beltway Washington audience, while The Atlantic goes for “national and global” readers, according to Foran. That difference “changes the tone, substance and style of what you write, and to some degree, the topics,” she says.