'''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 a largely centrist stance on fiscal issues and a left-wing stance of social issues. The magazine's outlook is 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. On social issues, ''TNR'' is further to the left. Its support of same-sex marriage, for example, is generally considered left of the Democratic Party. 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'':
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:
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 magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely critizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States. In its May 2007 issue the magazine ran the editoral, titled "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".
Peretz ownership and eventual editorship, 1974-1979
In March 1974, the magazine was purchased for $380,000[[1]Alterman, Eric, "My Marty Peretz Problem -- And Ours", ''The American Prospect'', June 18, 2007, accessed July 3, 2007] by Harvard University lecturer Martin Peretz [3], from from Gilbert Harrison.[ 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.][ 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.
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[ 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.[ ]
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."[ ]
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."[ ]
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.[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]
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."
Sullivan editorship, 1991-1996
In 1990, Andrew Sullivan, a 28-year-old gay Catholic from Britain, became editor and took the magazine in a somewhat more conservative direction, though 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''.
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.[ ]
Ruth Shalit, a young writer for the magazine in the Sullivan years, was repeatedly criticized for plagiarism. 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.
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.[ ]
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.[ ]
Peter Beinart, a third editor who took over when he was 28 years old[, 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 [...]".[ 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.[ ]
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''. 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.19
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.[4]
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[5] | 101,651 | |
|---|
2001 | 88,409 | -13.0 |
|---|
| 2002[6] | 85,069 | -3.8 |
|---|
| 2003[7] | 63,139 | -25.8 |
|---|
| 2004[8] | 61,675 | -2.3 |
|---|
| 2005[9] | 61,771 | 0.2 |
|---|
| 2006[10] | 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' 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''.[11]
Ruth Shalit plagiarism
In 1995, writer Ruth Shalit was fired for repeated incidents of plagiarism and an excess of factual errors in her articles.[12]
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.[13] [14] The blog was removed from the website and Siegel was suspended from writing for the print magazine;[15] 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.[16]
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,[17] 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.[18] Within 24 hours of being fired by ''The New Republic'', Ackerman was hired as a senior correspondent for a rival magazine, ''The American Prospect''.
=== Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy ===
In July 2007, after ''The New Republic'' published an article by an American soldier in Iraq titled "Shock Troops," allegations of inadequate fact-checking were leveled against the magazine. Critics alleged that the piece contained inconsistent details indicative of fabrication. The identity of the anonymous soldier, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, was revealed. Beauchamp was married to Elspeth Reeve, one of the magazine’s three fact-checkers. As a result of the controversy, the ''New Republic'' and the United States Army launched investigations.[Army Private Discloses He Is New Republic's Baghdad Diarist][Doubts Raised by 'Baghdad Diarist'][Michael Goldfarb, Weekly Standard, Fact or Fiction?] As of August 2007, both sides are standing behind their stories.
See Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy
Editors
# Herbert Croly (1914-1930)
# Bruce Bliven (1930-1946)
# Henry A. Wallace (1946-1948)
# Michael Straight (1948-1956)
# Gilbert A. Harrison (1956-1975)
# Martin Peretz (1975-1979)
# Michael Kinsley (1979-1981; 1985-1989)
# Hendrik Hertzberg (1981-1985; 1989-1991)
# Andrew Sullivan (1991-1996)
# Michael Kelly (1996-1997)
# Charles Lane (1997-1999)
# Peter Beinart (1999-2006)
# Franklin Foer (2006-present) [19]
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
★ John Dewey, essayist
★ W. E. B. DuBois, writer, professor and sociologist
★ Otis Ferguson, film critic
★ John T. Flynn, essayist and New Deal critic
★ George Orwell, author and essayist
★ Virginia Woolf, author and essayist
1950s-1960s
★ Hannah Arendt, political scientist
★ Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian
★ Philip Roth, author
1980s-1990s
★ Fred Barnes
★ Jeane Kirkpatrick
★ Joshua Muravchik
★ Eric Breindel
★ Jacob Heilbrunn
★ Irving Kristol
★ Edward Luttwak
★ Michael Ledeen
★ Ronald Radosh
★ Robert Kagan
★ Charles Krauthammer
1990s-present
★ Fouad Ajami, professor of Middle East Studies at John Hopkins University
★ Scott Thomas Beauchamp, freelance writer, soldier
★ Paul Berman, essayist, author
★ Simon Blackburn, philosopher
★ Jonathan Chait, senior editor
★ Niall Ferguson, historian
★ Stephen Glass, reporter fired by ''TNR'' for submitting fabricated stories, dramatized in the 2003 film ''Shattered Glass''
★ Matt Groening, illustrator and ''The Simpsons'' creator
★ Johann Hari, British writer
★ John Judis, essayist
★ Tony Judt, historian
★ Michael Oren, historian and author
★ Camille Paglia, essayist
★ Dale Peck, literary reviewer
★ Steven Pinker, cognitive linguist and Harvard professor
★ Richard Posner, federal judge
★ Amartya Sen, economist
★ Lee Siegel, cultural critic
★ Michael Walzer, philosopher, essayist, author
★ Alan Wolfe, public intellectual
★ Gordon S. Wood, historian
★ James Wood, literary critic
References
1. Frequency Change FAQ
2. New Republic Cuts Back, but Bulks Up Its Image
3. Three Decades of The New Republic
4.
5. Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2001 v 2000
6. Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2002 v 2001
7. Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2003 v 2002
8. Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2004 v 2003
9. Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2005 v 2004
10. Circulation for all ABC Magazines, 2006 v 2005
11. Shattered Glass
12. Diversity Had Nothing to Do With Reporter's Deceit
13. Coda to Kincaid
14. Franklin Foer Apologizes... Brad DeLong
15. An Apology to Our Readers Franklin Foer
16. Il.Duce.blogspot.com
17. Too Hot For TNR Spencer Ackerman
18. Off The Record
19. Franklin Foer Is Named Top Editor of New Republic David Carr
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
Secondary sources
★ 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
External links
★ http://www.tnr.com – ''The New Republic'' Online, offering online subscription
★ The Plank
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