David Haskell, editor-in-chief of New York Magazine, and Lindsay Peoples, editor-in-chief of the Cut, today announced that Marisa Carroll will serve as the Cut’s new executive editor to grow the brand’s coverage and reach. In this role, she will oversee the site’s features and print issues, expand its slate of high-ambition special projects, and help guide day-to-day editorial. The Cut also expands its team to include Chantal Fernandez as features writer, Cat Zhang as culture writer, Olivia Craighead as news writer, Cortne Bonilla as fashion market editor, and Laura Bassett as political contributor. Julia Edelstein joins as features editor for New York Magazine with a focus on parenting.
“This is an exciting time for the Cut as we continue to grow, and I’m thrilled for this next chapter,” said Peoples. “I’ve long admired so many of our new colleagues’ work, and I see this expansion as a testament to how incredible our team has been in growing our community. This is an opportunity for us to deepen our innovative and relevant storytelling, and we’re looking forward to continuing to redefine what it means to be a modern magazine.”
Marisa Carroll joined New York Magazine as a features editor in 2019, and since then her work has spanned in-depth features on everything from politics, celebrity profiles, and entertainment-industry reporting to first-person essays by notables like Emily Ratajkowski and Parkland activist X González, and special projects including the Cut’s Trans Family Handbook. Previously, she was a features editor and deputy national editor at BuzzFeed News. Most notably, her work included sexual-misconduct investigations into R. Kelly, Kevin Spacey, and the NYPD, among others, as well as Michelle Dean’s story on Gypsy and Dee Dee Blanchard, which was one of the site’s most-read features ever and was adapted into the Emmy-winning series The Act.
Chantal Fernandez joins the Cut as a features writer to cover fashion, retail, luxury, and beauty, with a focus on business and culture. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. From 2016 to 2022, she was a senior reporter at the Business of Fashion. She started her career as an assistant at Vanity Fair.
Julia Edelstein joins as features editor at New York Magazine with a focus on parenting and health coverage. Prior to joining the magazine, she was the editor-in-chief of Parents, the largest parenting media brand in America, where she led a team that shifted the brand’s mission, scope, and strategy to meet the needs of millennial parents through the pandemic. She has also led health and parenting coverage at Health magazine, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping.
Cat Zhang joins as culture writer for the Cut, covering music, film, television, and celebrity. Previously, she was an associate editor at Pitchfork, and her writing has been featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, Slate, and more. In 2022, Cat received the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Next Award for Journalists Under 30.
Olivia Craighead is a news writer for the Cut who covers pop culture and celebrity. Previously, she wrote about pop culture and entertainment at Gawker. She has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, and more. From 2019 to 2020, she co-hosted the podcast Iconography with Ayo Edebiri.
Cortne Bonilla joins the Cut as fashion market editor, covering both emerging and established brands. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Fashionista, Elle, Essence and more. Previously, she was a freelance fashion writer covering industry news, rising trends and designers, and notable new arrivals. She also created copy for the award-winning documentary The Beauty of Blackness in 2022.
Laura Bassett is an award-winning politics and election-coverage contributor with a focus on gender and culture. She was previously editor-in-chief of Jezebel. Prior to that, she was senior politics reporter at HuffPost, where she covered women’s rights and health. In 2015, she won a grant from the Pulitzer Center to cover unsafe abortion in Kenya, for which she won the Population Institute’s Global Media Award. She has also twice won Planned Parenthood’s Media Excellence Award for feature writing and commentary.