Team Out: The Hot List Issue

Every year Out magazine assembles its Hot List, a snapshot of the people, ideas and trends defining the moment in gay culture, and every year the decisions behind it are argued out in an editorial office in New York. This behind-the-scenes special from Here Media follows editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin and his staff, including Grant Woolhead, Brent Austin Coover, Noah Michelson and Bill Keith, as they pitch, debate and whittle down candidates for the issue. The documentary offers a rare look at how a magazine with cultural authority decides what and who matters, capturing the mix of instinct, taste and office politics that goes into a single feature. For readers who have ever wondered why one name made the list and another did not, it is an insider's answer; for everyone else, it is a portrait of a newsroom at work during a moment when gay media was defining the mainstream conversation.