Recently someone I follow boosted a link to an article about why The Atlantic is a godawful magazine. I've read the article now and I highly recommend it.
The Worst Magazine in America, by Nathan J. Robinson
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-worst-magazine-in-america
A far-from-exhaustive list of points it makes:
- There is an astonishing lack of editorial oversight apparent in The Atlantic.
- The Atlantic routinely publishes pieces that are unsourced, misleading, and actively deceptive, and ignores experts' attempts to correct the "facts" it publishes.
- Through shoddy journalism, The Atlantic makes right-wing views palatable to a liberal audience.
In Robinson's words, his "basic criticism is that while it presents itself as a magazine of ideas—which makes readers feel as if they are engaging intelligently with important issues—it in fact covers those issues in such a superficial and slipshod way that people are liable to be left with a worse understanding of the issue than when they went in."
