Is there a keyboard shortcut to select a column for editing in Atom editor?

Here is a plugin for Atom, just hold alt and be happy. sublime-style-column-selection

With the cursor somewhere on the first "this", do Ctrl+D (OS X: command+D) three times. Then type "that".

Another option is to select the rows you want to edit. Then select "Split into Lines" from the "selection" menu. Then hit the home-key and start editing away in multi-cursor mode.

There are several ways to achieve this:

Keyboard

You can enable column selection mode using Ctrl+Shift+↑/↓. This will allow you to extend the cursor to multiple rows. Once you have selected all rows, release the keys, and use the Delete key to remove the text you want to replace. Once you're done, press the Esc key to release the cursors.

Note: You will have to disable the Mission Control (key bindings) in OS X to use this key combo.

How to Disable Mission Control (conflicting) Key Bindings (Mac)

To do this open System Preferences > Mission Control

Locate the key bindings for Mission Control and Applications windows:

Disable the key bindings for these two:

More details here.

Mouse

If you install the Sublime Style Column Selection package, you can use Alt+Mouse to select the columns in question.

More details here.