Zach Stafford is a journalist and the former editor-in-chief of '' The Advocate'' magazine. He is currently a columnist at

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

. Stafford won a

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

in 2022 as one of the co-producers of ''

A Strange Loop ''A Strange Loop'' is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson, and winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. First produced off-Broadway in 2019, then staged in Washington, D.C. in 2021, ''A Strange Loop'' premiered on Bro ...

''.

Early life and education

Stafford was born in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. He attended

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

and studied women's and gender studies.

Career

Stafford got his start as a reporter for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', reporting on

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...

and

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

Q issues. He was editor-at-large for ''Out'' magazine before being hired as the Chief Content Officer of

Grindr Grindr () is a location-based social networking and online dating application targeted towards members of the gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. It was one of the first geosocial apps for gay men when it launched in March 2009 an ...

. In that role, he also served as the editor-in-chief of the app's digital magazine, ''Into''. Stafford is the first black person to serve as the editor-in-chief of ''The Advocate'', the oldest and largest LGBTQ publication in the United States. "I have long respected ''The Advocate'' and the role the magazine played in the LGBTQ community, which started with their reporting on police brutality in the late 1960s, a topic I'm intimately familiar with from my own work", Stafford told NBC News. "I am incredibly excited to lead ''The Advocate'' in reporting and storytelling on LGBTQ life around the world, even if it means ruffling a few feathers along the way." Stafford co-hosted the LGBTQ Presidential Forum in the 2020 Democratic Primary. The event was hosted by ''The Advocate'',

GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals ...

, and the Cedar Rapids ''Gazette''. At the event, Vox reported that New Jersey senator

Cory Booker Cory Anthony Booker (born April 27, 1969) is an American politician and attorney who has served as the junior United States senator from New Jersey since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Booker is the first African-American U.S. sena ...

"entered the stage and immediately gave the ''Advocate'' editor-in-chief Zach Stafford a bearhug, lifting the journalist off his feet." In May 2019, Stafford was announced as the new co-host of ''

BuzzFeed News ''BuzzFeed News'' is an American news website published by BuzzFeed. It has published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was heavily criticized, and the FinCEN Files. Since its establishment in 2011, it ...

s morning show, ''AM to DM''. Stafford and Alex Berg replaced Isaac Fitzgerald and Saeed Jones, who had been with the show since it launched in 2017. The show covers trending tweets, the biggest news stories of the day, and interviews with celebrity guests and experts. In June 2020, Stafford was the inaugural editor-at-large for the relaunch of Buzzfeed's LGBTQ vertical and hosted their podcast, ''News O'Clock'', a daily news podcast from Buzzfeed and

IHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming Computing platform, platform owned by iHeartMedia. It was founded in August 2008. , iHeartRadio was functioning as the national umbr ...

. Since April 2021, he has been a columnist at

and has also appeared as contributor on their television network. In August 2022, Stafford launched a podcast with Sirius XM's

Stitcher Stitcher is a media company that specializes in the creation, distribution, and monetization of podcasts. Stitcher creates original shows through networks such as Earwolf and Witness Docs. Stitcher provides ad sales and distribution services to ...

called Vibe Check, focussing on "news and culture from a Black and queer perspective." The podcast is co-hosted by Stafford, Sam Sanders, and

Saeed Jones Saeed Jones (born November 26, 1985) is an American writer and poet. His debut collection '' Prelude to Bruise'' was named a 2014 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His second book, a memoir, '' How We Fight for Our ...

Awards and honors

Stafford has been recognized on

The Root 100 ''The Root'' is an African American-oriented online magazine. It was launched on January 28, 2008, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Donald E. Graham. History It was owned by Graham Holdings Company through its online subsidiary, The Slate Group. ...

and

Forbes 30 Under 30 ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 is a set of lists of people under 30 years old issued annually by ''Forbes'' magazine and some of its regional editions. The American lists recognize 600 business and industry figures, with 30 selected in twenty industries ...

. ''The Advocate'' won the

GLAAD Media Award The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by GLAAD to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the issues that affect their live ...

for Outstanding Magazine Overall Coverage in 2020 under his tenure. In 2022, Stafford won a

for co-producing ''

'' when the show won for Best Musical.

Works

''Boys, an Anthology'' (2013), Thought Catalog; ''Greetings From New Nashville: How a Sleepy Southern Town Became “It” City'' (2020), Vanderbilt Press; ''When Dogs Heal: Powerful Stories of People Living with HIV and the Dogs That Saved Them'' (2021), Lerner Publishing;

Personal life

He is gay.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stafford, Zach Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American magazine editors American gay writers American LGBT journalists LGBT African Americans 21st-century journalists Journalists from Tennessee DePaul University alumni American podcasters Tony Award winners