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The New Republic
EditorFranklin Foer
CategoriesEditorial magazine
FrequencyTwice per month
Circulation60,000
PublisherCanWest Global Communications
First issueNovember 7 1914
CompanyNew Republic, Inc
Country United States
LanguageEnglish
Websitewww.tnr.com
ISSN0028-6583
For other uses, see New Republic.

The New Republic (TNR) is an American magazine of opinion published twice per month (published weekly before March 2007) and with a circulation between 40,000 and 65,000. The editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz. The current editor is Franklin Foer. Politically, the magazine tends to support modern liberal political policies.


New format

Starting with the March 19, 2007 issue, the magazine implemented major changes:

  • Decreased frequency: the magazine will now be published twice a month, or 24 times a year. This replaces the old plan of publishing 44 issues a year.
  • New design and layout: Issues will feature more visuals, new art and other "reader friendly" content.
  • More pages and bigger size: Issues will be bigger and contain more pages.
  • Improved paper: Sturdier covers and pages.
  • Increased newsstand price: Although the subscription prices aren't to change, the newsstand price will increase from $3.95 to $4.95.
  • Website redesign: The website will offer more daily content and new features.[1][2]

Politics

Domestically, the current version of TNR supports policies first associated with the Democratic Leadership Council and "New Democrats" like former President Bill Clinton and Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who received the magazine's endorsement in the 2004 Democratic primary. These policies, while seeking to achieve the ends of traditional social welfare programs, often use market solutions as their means, and so are often called "business-friendly". Typical of some of the policies supported by both TNR and the DLC during the 1990s were increased funding for the Earned Income Tax Credit program and reform of the Federal welfare system. In its March, 2007 issue the New Republic ran an article by Paul Starr (co-funder of the magazine's main rival, The American Prospect) where he defined the type of modern American liberalism in his article War and Liberalism:

Liberalism wagers that a state... can be strong but constrained – strong because constrained... Rights to education and other requirements for human development and security aim to advance equal opportunity and personal dignity and to promote a creative and productive society. To guarantee those rights, liberals have supported a wider social and economic role for the state, counterbalanced by more robust guarantees of civil liberties and a wider social system of checks and balances anchored in an independent press and pluralistic society. – Paul Starr, volume 236, p. 21-24

Unsigned editorials prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq expressed strong support for military action, citing the threat of WMD as well as humanitarian concerns. Since the end of major military operations, unsigned editorials, while critical of the handling of the war, have continued to justify the invasion on humanitarian grounds, but no longer maintain that Iraq's WMD facilities posed any threat to the United States. In the November 27, 2006, issue, the editors wrote: "At this point, it seems almost beside the point to say this: The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war. The past three years have complicated our idealism and reminded us of the limits of American power and our own wisdom."[3]

On June 23, 2006, TNR owner Martin Peretz, in response to criticism of the magazine from the blog Daily Kos, wrote the following as a summary of TNR's stances on recent issues

"The New Republic is very much against the Bush tax programs, against Bush Social Security 'reform,' against cutting the inheritance tax, for radical health care changes, passionate about Gore-type environmentalism, for a woman's entitlement to an abortion, for gay marriage, for an increase in the minimum wage, for pursuing aggressively alternatives to our present reliance on oil and our present tax preferences for gas-guzzling automobiles. We were against the confirmation of Justice Alito."[4]

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely critizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the exsistence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States. In its May 2007 issue the magazine ran the editoral, "Nice Ass," which points to the humanitarian beliefs of liberals for the recent plight of the American left. In another recent article the TNR hailed Denmark as an example that strong involvement in a country's economy can lead to great prosperity. Such editorials and articles exemplify the liberal political orientation of TNR.

History

Early years

The New Republic (TNR) was founded by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann through the financial backing of heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and her husband, Willard Straight, who maintained majority ownership. The magazine's first issue was published on November 7, 1914. The magazine's politics were liberal and progressive, and as such concerned with coping with the great changes brought about by America's late-19th century industrialization. The magazine is widely considered important in changing the character of liberalism in the direction of governmental interventionism, both foreign and domestic. Among the most important of these was the emergence of the U.S. as a Great Power on the international scene, and in 1917 TNR urged America's entry into World War I on the side of the Allies.

One consequence of World War I was the Russian Revolution of 1917, and during the inter-war years the magazine was generally positive in its assessment of the Soviet Union and its communist government. This changed with the start of the Cold War and the 1948 departure of leftist editor Henry A. Wallace to run for president on the Progressive ticket. After Wallace, TNR moved towards positions more typical of mainstream American liberalism. During the 1950s it was critical of both Soviet foreign policy and domestic anti-communism, particularly McCarthyism. During the 1960s the magazine opposed the Vietnam War, but was also often critical of the New Left.

Up until the late 1960s, the magazine had a certain "cachet as the voice of re-invigorated liberalism", in the opinion of Eric Alterman, a commentator who has criticized the magazine's politics from the left. That cachet, Alterman wrote, "was perhaps best illustrated when the dashing, young President Kennedy had been photographed boarding Air Force One holding a copy".[5]

Peretz ownership and eventual editorship, 1974-1979

In March 1974, the magazine was purchased for $380,000[5] by Harvard University lecturer Martin Peretz [6], from from Gilbert Harrison.[5] Peretz was a veteran of the New Left who had broken with that movement over its support of various Third World liberationist movements, particularly the Palestine Liberation Organization. Peretz transformed TNR into its current form. Under his ownership, TNR has advocated both strong U.S. support for the Israeli government and a hawkish U.S. foreign policy.[5] On domestic policy, it has advocated a self-critical brand of liberalism, taking positions that range from traditionally liberal to neoliberalism. It has generally supported Democratic candidates for president, although in 1980 it endorsed the moderate Republican John B. Anderson, running as an independent, rather than the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter.

Harrison continued editing the magazine from an office equipped with a Queen Anne desk and John Marin paintings, and thought he had Peretz's promise to let him continue running the magazine for three years. But by 1975, when Peretz became annoyed at having his own articles rejected for publication while he was pouring money into the magazine to cover its losses, he fired Harrison, and much of the staff, including Walter Pincus, Stanley Karnow, and Doris Grumbach, was either fired or quit, being replaced largely by young men from Harvard. Peretz himself became the editor and stayed in that post until 1979. As other editors have been appointed, Peretz has remained editor in chief.[5]

Kinsley and Hertzberg editorships, 1979-1991

Michael Kinsley, a neoliberal, was editor (1979-1981; 1985-1989), alternating twice with Hendrick Hertzberg (1981-1985; 1989-1991), who has been called "an old-fashioned social democrat". Kinsley was only 28 years old when he first became editor and was still studying law[5] at George Washington University.

Writers for the magazine during this era included neoliberals Mickey Kaus and Jacob Weisberg along with Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Sidney Blumenthal, Robert Kuttner, Ronald Steel, Michael Walzer, and Irving Howe.[5]

During the 1980s the magazine generally supported President Ronald Reagan's anti-Communist foreign policy, including provision of aid to the Nicaraguan Contras. It has also supported both Gulf Wars and, reflecting its belief in the moral efficacy of American power, intervention in "humanitarian" crises, such as those in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo during the Yugoslav wars.

The magazine also became known for its originality and unpredictability in the 1980s. It was widely considered a "must read" across the political spectrum. An article in Vanity Fair judged TNR "the smartest, most impudent weekly in the country," and the "most entertaining and intellectually agile magazine in the country." According to Alterman, the magazine's prose could sparkle and the contrasting views within its pages were "genuinely exciting". He added, "The magazine unarguably set the terms of debate for insider political elites during the Reagan era."[5]

With the less predictable opinions, more of them leaning conservative than before, the magazine won the respect of many conservative opinion leaders and 20 copies were messengered to the Reagan White House each Thursday afternoon. Norman Podhoretz called the magazine "indispensable", and George Will said it was "currently the nation's most interesting and most important political journal." National Review described it as "one of the most interesting magazines in the United States."[5]

Credit for its quality and popularity was often assigned to Kinsley, whose wit and critical sensibility were seen as enlivening a magazine that had for many years been more conventional in its politics, and Hertzberg, a former writer for The New Yorker and speechwriter for Jimmy Carter.

Hertzberg and Kinsley not only alternated as editor but also alternated as the author of the magazine's lead column, "TRB from Washington". Its perspective was described as left-of-center in 1988.[7]

A final ingredient that led to the magazine's increased stature in the 1980s was its "back of the book" or literary, cultural and arts pages, which were edited by Leon Wieseltier. Peretz discovered Wieseltier, then working at Harvard's Society of Fellows, and put him in charge of the section. Wieseltier reinvented the section along the lines of The New York Review of Books, allowing his critics, many of them academics, to write longer, critical essays instead of mere book reviews. Alterman calls the hire "probably [...] Peretz's single most significant positive achievement" in running the magazine. During other changes of editors, Wieseltier has remained as cultural editor. Under him the section has been "simultaneously erudite and zestful", according to Alterman, who adds, "Amazingly, a full generation later, it still sings."[5]

Sullivan editorship, 1991-1996

In 1990, Andrew Sullivan, then a 28-year-old gay, Catholic from Britain, became editor and took the magazine in a somewhat more conservative direction, although the majority of writers remained liberal or neoliberal. Hertzberg soon left the magazine to return to The New Yorker. Kinsley left the magazine in 1996 to found the online magazine Slate.[5]

Sullivan invited Charles Murray to contribute a controversial, 10,000-word article that contended blacks may be, as a whole, less intelligent than whites due to genetics. The magazine also published a very critical article about Hillary Clinton's health care plan by Elizabeth McCaughey, an article that Alterman called "the single most influential article published in the magazine during the entire Clinton presidency". Sullivan also published a number of pieces by Camille Paglia.[5]

Ruth Shalit, a young writer for the magazine in the Sullivan years, was repeatedly criticized for plaigarism. To fact-check her stories, Sullivan called on Stephen Glass, who later was found to have made up quotes, anecdotes and facts in his articles.[5]

Kelly, Lane, Beinart, Foer editorships, 1996 to present

After Sullivan stepped down in 1996, Michael Kelly served as editor for a year. Kelly, who also wrote the TRB column, was intensely critical of President Clinton during his tenure as editor and afterward.[5]

Chuck Lane held the position between 1997 and 1999. During Lane's tenure, the Stephen Glass scandal became public. Peretz has written that Lane "put the ship back on its course," for which Peretz said he was "immensely grateful." But Lane was later fired by Peretz and only got the news when a Washington Post reporter called Lane to comment on it.[5]

Peter Beinart, a third editor who took over when he was 28 years old[5], followed Lane and served as editor from 1999 to 2006.

Franklin Foer took over from Beinart in March 2006. In the magazine's first editorial under Foer, it said "We've become more liberal … We've been encouraging Democrats to dream big again on the environment and economics [...]".[5] Foer is the brother of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated (2002).

Other prominent writers who edited or wrote for the magazine in these years include senior editor and TRB columnist Jonathan Chait, Lawrence Kaplan, John Judis and Spencer Ackerman.[5]

In 2005, TNR created its blog, called The Plank, which is written by Michael Crowley, Franklin Foer, Jason Zengerle, and other TNR staff. The Plank is meant to be TNR's primary blog, replacing the magazine's first three blogs, &c., Iraq'd, and Easterblogg.

The magazine remains well known, with references to it occasionally popping up in popular culture. Lisa Simpson was once portrayed as a subscriber to The New Republic for Kids. Matt Groening, The Simpsons' creator, once wrote for TNR.[citation needed] In the pilot episode of the HBO series Entourage aired first on July 18, 2004, Ari Gold asks Eric Murphy: "Do you read The New Republic? Well, I do, and it says that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

End of Peretz's ownership, 2007

Until February 2007, The New Republic was owned by Martin Peretz, New York financiers Roger Hertog and Michael Steinhardt, and Canadian media conglomerate CanWest.[8]

In late February 2007, Peretz sold his share of the magazine to CanWest, which announced that a subsidiary, CanWest Media Works International, had acquired a full interest in the publication. Peretz retained his position as editor-in-chief.[9]

Circulation

The New Republic's average paid circulation for 2006 was 61,024 copies per issue, a decline of 40 percent since 2000.

The New Republic Average Paid Circulation
Year Avg Paid Circ % Change
2000[10] 101,651
2001[11] 88,409 -13.0
2002[12] 85,069 -3.8
2003[13] 63,139 -25.8
2004[14] 61,675 -2.3
2005[15] 61,771 0.2
2006[16] 61,024 -1.2

Controversies

Stephen Glass scandal

In 1998, features writer Stephen Glass was revealed in a Forbes magazine investigation to have fabricated a story called "Hack Heaven". A TNR investigation found that most of Glass's stories had used or been based on fabricated information. The story of Glass's fall and TNR editor Chuck Lane's handling of the scandal was dramatized in a 2003 film Shattered Glass, based on a 1998 article in Vanity Fair.[17]

Ruth Shalit plagiarism

In 1995, writer Ruth Shalit was fired for repeated incidents of plagiarism and an excess of factual errors in her articles.[18]

Lee Siegel

Long-time contributor, critic, and senior editor Lee Siegel had maintained a blog on the TNR site dedicated primarily to art and culture until an investigation revealed that he had collaborated in posting comments to his own blog under an alias aggressively praising Siegel, attacking his critics and claiming not to be Lee Siegel when challenged by an anonymous detractor on his blog.[19] [20] The blog was removed from the website and Siegel was suspended from writing for the print magazine;[21] he resumed writing for TNR in April, 2007. Siegel was also controversial for his coinage "blogofascists" which he applied to "the entire political blogosphere", though with an emphasis on leftwing or center-left bloggers such as Daily Kos and Atrios.[22]

Spencer Ackerman

In 2006, associate editor Spencer Ackerman was fired by Foer. Describing it as a "painful" decision, Foer attributed the firing to Ackerman's "insubordination": disparaging the magazine on his personal blog,[23] saying that he would “skullfuck” a terrorist's corpse at an editorial meeting if that was required to "establish his anti-terrorist bona fides" and sending Foer an e-mail where he said—in what according to Ackerman was intended to be a joke—he would “make a niche in your skull” with a baseball bat. Ackerman, by contrast, argued that the dismissal was due to “irreconcilable ideological differences.” He believed that his leftward drift as a result of the Iraq War and the actions of the Bush administration was not appreciated by the senior editorial staff.[24] Within 24 hours of being fired by The New Republic, Ackerman was hired as a senior correspondent for a rival magazine, The American Prospect.

Editors

  1. Herbert Croly (1914-1930)
  2. Bruce Bliven (1930-1946)
  3. Henry A. Wallace (1946-1948)
  4. Michael Straight (1948-1956)
  5. Gilbert A. Harrison (1956-1975)
  6. Martin Peretz (1975-1979)
  7. Michael Kinsley (1979-1981; 1985-1989)
  8. Hendrik Hertzberg (1981-1985; 1989-1991)
  9. Andrew Sullivan (1991-1996)
  10. Michael Kelly (1996-1997)
  11. Charles Lane (1997-1999)
  12. Peter Beinart (1999-2006)
  13. Franklin Foer (2006-present) [8]

Before Wallace's appointment in 1946, the masthead listed no single editor in charge but gave an editorial board of four to eight members. Walter Lippmann, Edmund Wilson, and Robert Morss Lovett, among others, served on this board at various times. The names given above are the first editor listed in each issue, always the senior editor of the team.

Notable contributors

1910s-1940s

1950s-1960s

1980s-1990s

1990s-present


References

  1. ^ "Frequency Change FAQ". The New Republic.
  2. ^ Katharine Q. Seelye (2007-02-24). "New Republic Cuts Back, but Bulks Up Its Image". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-02-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Obligations". The New Republic. 2006-11-27. Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Martin Peretz (2006-06-23). "A Message From TNRS Lieberman-Loving NeoCon Owner". Retrieved 2006-10-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa [1]Alterman, Eric, "My Marty Peretz Problem -- And Ours", The American Prospect, June 18, 2007, accessed July 3, 2007
  6. ^ Peretz, Martin. "Three Decades of The New Republic". Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  7. ^ Stephenson, D. Grier Jr., Bresler, Robert J., Freidrich, Robert J., Karlesky, Joseph J., editors, American Government, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, ISBN 0-06-040947-9, pp. 166, 171
  8. ^ a b Carr, David (2006-02-28). "Franklin Foer Is Named Top Editor of New Republic". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-01-20. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ Seelye, Katharine Q. (2007-02-28), "New Republic's Editor in Chief Sells His Share of the Magazine", The New York Times, pp. Section C, Pg. 2 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  10. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2001 v 2000". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  11. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2001 v 2000". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  12. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2002 v 2001". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  13. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2003 v 2002". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  14. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2004 v 2003". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  15. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2005 v 2004". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  16. ^ "Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2006 v 2005". Magazine Publishers of America. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
  17. ^ Buzz Bissinger (1998-09). "Shattered Glass". Vanity Fair. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ "Diversity Had Nothing to Do With Reporter's Deceit". Washington Post. 2003-05-13. Retrieved 2006-10-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "Coda to Kincaid". The New Republic. 08.25.06. Retrieved 2007-01-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Brad DeLong (1 September 2006). "Franklin Foer Apologizes..." Retrieved 2007-01-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ Franklin Foer. "An Apology to Our Readers". The New Republic. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
  22. ^ Lee Siegel (28 July 2006). "Il.Duce.blogspot.com". The New Republic. Retrieved 2007-01-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ Spencer Ackerman. "Too Hot For TNR". Retrieved 2007-01-17.
  24. ^ Michael Calderone (2006-10-30). "Off The Record". New York Observer. Retrieved 2006-12-31. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • Mott Frank L. A History of American Magazines. Vol. 3. Harvard University Press, 1960.
  • Seideman; David. The New Republic: A Voice of Modern Liberalism 1986
  • Steel Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century 1980

Primary sources

  • Groff Conklin, ed. New Republic Anthology: 1914-1935, 1936.
  • Cowley Malcom. And I Worked at the Writer's Trade 1978.
  • Wickenden, Dorothy (1994). The New Republic Reader. ISBN 0-465-09822-3
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