Make The New Republic Liberal Again

So The New Republic is up for sale. Again. The Facebook exec gave up on it, apparently after first the staff and then the readers gave up on it.

My suggestion? Someone buy it and make it a liberal magazine again. And I mean "liberal" in the real sense — a magazine where ideas are debated and argued and investigated.

Current owner Chris Hughes made it into a magazine that all too often was filled with the same leftwing conventional wisdom that comforts the people who already believe it but doesn't do anything to convince those who aren't already believers. Liberalism doesn't exist without vigorous debate; for all the "old" New Republic's failings (diversity certainly one of them), it was a platform for intelligent people to try to come up with the best way to address the country's (and sometimes the world's) problems through the process of thinking, researching, arguing, and reconsidering. The magazine's editorial offices were famous for the sometimes heated arguments.

Liberalism isn't about party lines and trigger warnings and microaggressions and political correctness. Those are for people who don't want to think. Liberalism is about the sloppy workings of a republic; sometimes it isn't pretty, it's often very noisy, but it is the best way we have of sifting out the good ideas from the bad, of exposing the fraud and the lies, and being sure we're as close to truth as possible.

Any buyers out there who still care about such things? Any readers till care about such things?

Paul Krugman vs. Michael Kinsley

I won't claim to be half as smart about economics as is Paul Krugman, but I'm pleased to see his slap-down of Michael Kinsley.

Read Krugman's blog post below for his economy- and austerity-specific comments. But what really caught my attention was his dead-on remarks about Kinsley and New Republic weaknesses, which I've been saying for years (to nobody who cares, naturally).

Krugman on the attacks on his writings: "... I suspect it has a lot to do with the famed TNR/Slate premium on being 'counterintuitive,' which in practice meant skewering supposed liberal pieties."

And: "[T]his is not a game. We’re having a discussion about policies that affect tens of millions of people. And you have no business participating in this discussion if you’re so busy trying to sound clever that you can’t be bothered to do your homework." Echoes there of Harlan Ellison's famed comment that you're not entitled to your opinion; you're entitled to your informed opinion.

Most of you won't understand how dead-on his criticisms are of Kinsley and TNR, but for those of us who have read a lot of both, we can appreciate having a Nobel laureate in our corner.

Read Krugmans New York Times blog post.

The New The New The New Republic

I just purchased the February 11, 2013, edition of The New Republic magazine, the first issue since its redesign and editorial overhaul.

In high school and college (waaay back in the late 1980s), this was a magazine to which I was addicted; later, it devolved into something from which I was repulsed; and now it is something by which I am intrigued.

After I read this issue, I'll post my updated thoughts. But just from the flip-through-and-admire stage I'm at right now, I'm optimistic. There just might be a subscription to TNR in my future, once again.

Leon Wieseltier vs. Andrew Sullivan, Part II

Andrew Sullivan has responded at length to The New Republic's Leon Wieseltier's attack on him.

I wrote my my reaction yesterday.

Frankly, this entire fight -- including the reactions of many others who have entered the fray (you can find 'em easily by googling leon wieseltier andrew sullivan) -- makes me glad that, back in the summer of 1990, I did not get the coveted New Republic internship that was doled out by a collegiate nonprofit with which I was involved. My consolation prize was weird enough.

The New Republic Lumps Andrew Sullivan in with the Anti-Semites

and lo did Leon Wieseltier smite Andrew Sullivan, sending him forth to lament among the anti-semites ...

The New Republic's long-time literary editor, Leon Wieseltier, has penned (maybe in a digital age, he keyed?) a harsh attack on former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan, taking him to task for Sullivan's writings about Israel, American Jews, and Israeli-Palestinian relations. Read the article yourself via the above link; there's no way to do it justice here, merely to point out its significance.

Wieseltier writes in his conclusion: "About the Jews, is Sullivan a bigot, or is he just moronically insensitive? To me, he looks increasingly like the Buchanan of the left." That's taken out of context, but only so much. After reading the article, one does not need to be a defender or fan of Sullivan (and I am definitely neither; I find him tiresome and as ardent in his positions when he's laughably wrong as when I think he's correct) to conclude that William F. Buckley Jr. (again, I'm neither a Buckley defender or fan) did a better job tagging Buchanan as an anti-semite than Wieseltier's longwinded article does with Sullivan.

Sullivan was editor of TNR in the early 1990s, around the time I lost interest in the magazine that had once been my political bible. A family friend, knowing my precocious interest in politics, had bought me a birthday subscription to the magazine. I would subscribe almost uninterrupted for nearly a decade. (The first issue to arrive in my mailbox featured a cover story on KAL Flight 007, the Korean airliner shot down by the Soviets in 1983.) I was hooked immediately by the magazine's smart writing, sometimes snarky takes on serious subjects, and its editors' apparent deep wells of knowledge on topics.

But TNR's weaknesses get to you after a while. The closed-circle of Friends of the Editors who write for the magazine (or are endorsed for president, but that's another, longer story). The ethical shabbiness (part of what made me lose respect for the magazine was the way it mishandled complaints about alleged plagiarism by one of its writers). The buck-raking by its editors. I could go on with the list, but why bother?

Even as a former reader, I've followed the adventures and misadventures of the mag out of a corner of my eye. I've seen that there's no love lost between Wieseltier and Sullivan. Once Obi Wan Kenobi to Sullivan's Anakin Skywalker (if Wieseltier can quote W.H. Auden ...), Wieseltier's relationship with his padawan learner soured as the conservative/Catholic/British/gay Sullivan turned to the dark side. (The Economist writes that one big turning point in their relationship was when Sullivan published the controversial -- and debunked -- The Bell Curve in TNR.) Wieseltier also said that Sullivan had caused a great deal of unhappiness at the magazine when he ran it.

"About the Jews, is Sullivan a bigot..." Wieseltier asks this time. But this is not the first fight between the two that has brought into question Sullivan's affection or lack thereof for Jews and Israel. Read this exchange, in which Wieseltier states Sullivan's not an anti-semite. Has Sullivan backslid since then? Possibly. But for the rest of us, we can perhaps request that these two keep any future kerfuffle between them and not air it publicly. It does little to illuminate the situation of Israel, the Palestinians, or how weird multi-hyphenate pundits like Sullivan can contribute or detract from the debate.

In closing, I'll note with approval one more swipe Wieseltier takes at Sullivan, who blogs at The Atlantic's web site. He says of Sullivan: "He is the master, and the prisoner, of the technology of sickly obsession: blogging – and the divine right of bloggers to exempt themselves from the interrogations of editors – is also a method of hounding." That's a beautiful observation, and a dead-on charge of Sullivan and many other bloggers.

He might have added that bloggers are quick to forgive themselves their errors and quick to hound those they find to be offenders.

UPDATE: Sullivan has posted an initial response, and promised more.

Well, No One Ever Claimed The New Republic Was an Expert on Magazines or Sex

In an article in political magazine The New Republic, writer Tom Bissell reviews Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America, a new book by Elizabeth Fraterrigo published by Oxford University Press.

He starts off by writing that Fraterrigo basically succeeds in making her case that Playboy is responsible for the world in which we live in many ways (sexual revolution, appreciation for luxury goods by the masses, some leadership in racial integration, etc.). Much of the rest of the review won't be new or interesting to any of us in the magazine business, but he has this seemingly contradictory statement toward the end:

But it always had something with which to justify itself, which was the quality of its articles, stories, and interviews -- and, as Fraterrigo argues (though does not much explore), it was this that ensured, even from Playboy’s foes, a certain amount of grudging respect. The problem with Playboy was that its editorial content has never been strong enough for it to be only a magazine. It also had to be a lifestyle.

 "[I]ts editorial content has never been strong enough for it to be only a magazine"? Its editorial content did more than earn it "grudging respect." In fact, its editorial content for much of its time was better than the editorial content of most other magazines. The reasons are that editor Hugh Hefner had high standards and he was willing to pay to get the top writers and reporters -- everyone from William F. Buckley Jr. to Joyce Carol Oates to Jonathan Safran Foer to Jane Smiley to ... oh, forget it. None of that seems to add up to much for Bissell, who can't get over the nekkid ladies in the magazine's pages or its wider cultural impact.

Perhaps he just chose his words carelessly and intended to say something to the effect that Playboy's ambitions were always too large to be confined to a magazine, and he would have been correct there. But that's not what he wrote.

Bissell's review is an acceptable introduction to the book, and it might let people decide whether they want to buy it. But it's not good at understanding the point or the medium of the book's subject. His review reminds us that we shouldn't expect penetrating social commentary from that political magazine. (You'll get more from Royal Flush magazine.) Strangely, you have been able to get politics from Playboy for many decades. So which magazine is more dispensable?

The New Republic to Shed up to One-Third of Its Staff

The New Republic, the leftwing/rightwing political journal published out of Washington, will be laying off either one-third of its staff or 15 percent of its staff (sources differ), reports FishbowlNY. Fishbowl's sources at the magazine say they've been told from the top that it'll be one-third of the staff, but the mag's reps told Fishbowl it'll be a 15-percent reduction.

Fishbowl acknowledges that it doesn't know if that one-third is one-third of the editorial staff or of the entire staff, and I guess it might therefore be possible that both numbers are correct. Then again, I have no sources at the magazine; I used to know an editor, but he moved on.

I need new sources!

The Reason

James Warren writes a regular roundup of magazines for Huffington Post. I've read his magazine roundups for years (for many years), going back to my time in Chicago in the 1990s. So I'm glad to see him marry the new media of HuffPo with old media: print magazines!

Anyway, Warren writes that the current issue of The New Republic includes an article about "Why Did New York Stop Growing Basketball Stars?"

And that's pretty much all you need to read to remember why you no longer read The New Republic. Even if I followed basketball, which I don't, I can't imagine why I'd care what the answer is to that question.

Magazine News: Update Roundup

A roundup of notes and some updates on previous posts here:

Old New Republic: If they can bring back George Clooney to ER, then why can't Martin Peretz buy back his magazine? Yep, Marty Peretz has bought back control of his baby, The New Republic magazine. As previously reported here (and here), Peretz used to own the li'l political magazine before selling it (in phases) to Canadian firm Canwest Global Communications.

In or out, in or out: Folio: reports that Penton is in the midst of layoffs and changing some print mags to online-only. But it is finding resources to launch one new print magazine, Chief Marketer.


Daily dilemma: The San Francisco Chronicle might not be killed off or sold after all. But I suspect I'm correct, as I wrote here earlier, that it'll be too weak to be a great newspaper, after it cuts hours, wages, and staff.

Last man standing: Magazine distributor Source Interlink continues to mop up its legal mess with competitors and competition, again according to Folio:. Background on this ridiculous battle here and here, and info on why traditional print distributors are whistling in the dark here.

We spit in the general direction of so-called bankruptcy: Mastehead Online reports that Reader's Digest Association President/CEO Mary Berner says phooey to speculation that the company was planning a bankruptcy, just because it had hired a law firm that is known for its work on bankruptcy cases. Still, it can't be good.


Logo tastes: In my notice about the new web site by science fiction media magazine Starlog, I asked whether the site's use of the magazine's old logo instead of the new one unveiled a few months ago was a mistake, just a placeholder, or a sign that they were abandoning the new logo. My source tells me it was none of the above. Just the preference of the web page creator.

And that's all the news that is, um, news of updated news. I'll have to work on a new closing line...

Deal Imminent on New Republic (re)Purchase?

The New York Observer reports that former owner and current editor Martin Peretz was very close to sealing a deal to repurchase political journal The New Republic. Peretz is reportedly teaming up with financial exec Larry Grafstein.

More news likely anyday now.

The Old New Republic Redux?

The New Republic magazine, the nearly century-old liberal (and occasionally conservative) political journal from Washington, D.C., may be getting another new owner, just a few years after being acquired by its current, er, new owner. And the new owner might turn out to be an old owner, reports Folio:.

Martin Peretz was the owner when I became a disciple of the magazine in the early 1980s. A friend of the family gave me a subscription (first issue featured the Soviet downing of the Korean airliner), and I remained a loyal subscriber for most of the decade. My devotion waned when the magazine went through some journalism problems (i.e., accusations of bad reporting practices by some of its younger reporters) and the magazine seemed to shrug them off. TNR has always been a little bit too nice to the people it's pals with (friends, former students, etc.). But I still kept up with it from time to time, finally giving up when an editor was reportedly let go because he didn't support the presidential candidacy of Peretz pal Al Gore. (That was the story at the time.)

Wrote Robin Pogrebin in The New York Times in Sept. 6, 1997, when editor Michael Kelly was fired (the "TRB" to which Kelly refers is the magazine's Washington political column):

Mr. Peretz has a well-known friendship with Vice President Gore, who was a student of his at Harvard University. In light of that, Mr. Kelly said, Mr. Peretz was concerned that the magazine's continued negative coverage would hurt Mr. Gore's Presidential prospects.

''I think that he probably saw that I was going to continue writing TRB's on the soft-money scandals, since I had made something of a cause out of it,'' Mr. Kelly said. ''And he made it clear to me that he didn't like that, and that is a subject area that is obviously increasingly involving Al Gore.''

Mr. Peretz, however, said Mr. Gore was not his primary concern. ''I anticipated having differences with Kelly about Gore,'' he said. ''But that wasn't the reason I asked him to leave.''

Kelly, of course, went on to revitalize The Atlantic Monthly before he was killed while covering the Iraq War.

So if the story about Peretz's intentions to repurchase his old magazine come true, what can we expect? Probably not much. He has remained editor-in-chief of the publication under its current owners. But we'll probably continue to get some juicy journalistic melodrama from the magazine, if the past is any indication.

Changing Logos: Why They Do It

Why do magazines change their logos? Logos are their calling card, whether on newsstands or just when the magazine plops on a subscriber's desk or is dropped into their mailbox. Unless the logo is a disaster, should it be changed?

Some magazines like to change their logos. See my earlier postings on Out, Starlog, Fangoria, Männer Aktuell, Fantastic Films, The New Republic, National Lampoon, and Fortune.

Some magazines do not change their logos. Heavy Metal, for example. Or Der Spiegel.
Other magazines have not changed them so much as tweaked them, altering the size or spacing of the letters. Playboy, for example (see photos). Time, for another. Or National Review.

What must go through the minds of a magazine's managers to make them change a logo in which they've invested years and dollars worth of promotion and goodwill? Is the publication flagging? Is newsstand competition heating up? Are they reacting to new developments in the logos of other publications? Are they just trying to make a change for change's sake? Have they lost their minds?
I've already said what I think about the change in Starlog's logo. But I've been through the process twice before on magazines for which I worked, having seen one magazine change its logo from a distinctive design to a fairly boring one. More recently, I had the pleasure on my own magazine of changing a nice-looking logo (that was difficult to make visible on many cover images) to a bolder text that has cleaned up our covers immeasurably.
In the latter case, we had to worry about what our readers would think, but we heard no complaints. So it was a good change. But what, for example goes through the minds of people who change a logo that's been in use for three decades?
"If it ain't broken, don't fix it" is generally a good rule. But when a magazine changes its long-standing logo, it should keep in mind and try to balance its need to be fresh and interesting to its readers (the new ones and the old ones) with its need to be familiar and communicate its quality (and qualities) through its established trademarks.

And, of course, publishers do sometimes make a change – and then change back. Warren's Creepy magazine did it. National Lampoon did it. Will Starlog do it? Should it?
What do you think?

Changing Logos #3: The New Republic

The New Republic has changed its logo many, many, many times, and none of them seem to work. Though this was my bible during the 1980s, I must say, design has not been its friend.
Strangely enough, the latest version (with President Obama photo, bottom) is the worst of all, seemingly lost against almost any cover illustration or photo. It looks desktop-published and cheap.