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The New Republic
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The New Republic (TNR) is an American magazine of politics and the arts. It is published semimonthly and has a circulation of approximately 60,000. The editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz and the current editor is Franklin Foer. The magazine generally supports liberal social and economic policies, while taking a hawkish viewpoint on foreign policy.
stically, the current version of TNR supports a largely centrist to center-left stance on fiscal issues and a more strongly liberal stance on social issues.
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Encyclopedia
The New Republic (TNR) is an American magazine of politics and the arts. It is published semimonthly and has a circulation of approximately 60,000. The editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz and the current editor is Franklin Foer. The magazine generally supports liberal social and economic policies, while taking a hawkish viewpoint on foreign policy.
Politics
Domestically, the current version of TNR supports a largely centrist to center-left stance on fiscal issues and a more strongly liberal stance on social issues. Editor Franklin Foer describes the magazine as overall center-left, stating that TNR "invented the modern usage of the term liberal, and it’s one of our historical legacies and obligations to be involved in the ongoing debate over what exactly liberalism means and stands for." As of 2004, however, Anne Kossedd and Steven Randall, contend that it is not as liberal as it was before 1974. 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. Supply-side economics, especially the idea of reducing higher marginal income tax rates, received heavy criticism from senior editor Jonathan Chait. Moreover, TNR is strongly in favor of universal health care. On certain high-profile social issues, such as its support of same-sex marriage, TNR could be considered more progressive than the centrist mainstream of the Democratic Party establishment. In its March 2007 issue, The New Republic ran an article by Paul Starr (co-founder of the magazine's main rival, The American Prospect) where he defined the type of modern American liberalism in his article War and Liberalism:
Support for Israel has been another strong theme in the New Republic. According to Peretz, "Support for Israel is deep down an expression of America's best view of itself." According to CUNY journalism professor, Eric Alterman, “Nothing has been as consistent about the past 34 years of TNR as the magazine's devotion to Peretz's own understanding of what is good for Israel…It is really not too much to say that almost all of Peretz's political beliefs are subordinate to his commitment to Israel's best interests, and these interests as Peretz defines them almost always involve more war."
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 criticizing 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 an editorial pointing to the humanitarian beliefs of liberals as being responsible for the recent plight of the American left. In another article TNR favorably cited the example of Denmark as evidence that an expansive welfare state and high tax burden can be consistent with, and in some ways contribute to, a strong economy. Such editorials and articles exemplify the liberal political orientation of TNR.
History
Early years
The New Republic 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 by Harvard University lecturer Martin Peretz, 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, expecting Peretz 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 recent Harvard graduates lacking in journalistic experience. 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 (in the American sense of the term), was editor (1979-1981; 1985-1989), alternating twice with Hendrik 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.
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". However, this article was later shown to be inaccurate and the magazine would later apologize for the story. 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. After the Shalit scandals, the magazine began using fact-checkers during Sullivan's time as editor. One was Stephen Glass, who would be found to have made up quotes, anecdotes and facts in his own articles, while he served as a reporter years later.
Kelly, Lane, Beinart, Foer editorships, 1996 to present
After Sullivan stepped down in 1996, David Greenberg and Peter Beinart served jointly as Acting Editors. After the 1996 election, Michael Kelly served as editor for a year. During his tenure as editor and afterward, Kelly, who also wrote the TRB column, was intensely critical of President Clinton.
Chuck Lane held the position between 1997 and 1999. During Lane's tenure, the Stephen Glass scandal occurred. Peretz has written that Lane ultimately "put the ship back on its course," for which Peretz said he was "immensely grateful." But Peretz later fired Lane, who only got the news when a Washington Post reporter called him for a comment.
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 TNRs primary blog, replacing the magazine's first three blogs, &c., Iraq'd, and Easterblogg. The Stump, TNR's blog on the 2008 Presidential Election was created in October 2007.
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 drew a cover 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.
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.
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.
Circulation
The New Republics average paid circulation for 2007 was 59,779 copies per issue, a decline of 41 percent since 2000.
The New Republic Average Monthly Paid Circulation | Year | Avg Paid Circ | % Change |
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| 2000 | 101,651 | |
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| 2001 | 88,409 | -13.0 |
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| 2002 | 85,069 | -3.8 |
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| 2003 | 63,139 | -25.8 |
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| 2004 | 61,675 | -2.3 |
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| 2005 | 61,771 | 0.2 |
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| 2006 | 61,024 | -1.2 |
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| 2007 | 59,779 | -2.0 |
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Online
According to Quantcast the TNR website received roughly 120,000 visitors in April 2008. Demographically, visitors tended to be well educated (75% being college graduates, with 36% having a graduate degree), relatively affluent (55% having a household income of over $60,000 and 23% having a six figure income), white (79%), and more likely to be male (57%). 82% were at least 35 years old with 38% being over the age of 50.
Controversies
Michael Straight
New Republic editor Michael Whitney Straight (1948 to 1956) was later discovered to be a spy for the KGB, recruited into the same network as Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, and Anthony Blunt. Straight's espionage activities began at Cambridge during the 1930s; he later claimed that they ceased during World War II. Later, shortly before serving in Kennedy administration, he revealed his past ties and turned in fellow spy Anthony Blunt. In return for his cooperation, his own involvement was kept secret and he continued to serve in various capacities for the US Government until he retired. Straight admitted to his involvement in his memoirs; however, subsequent documents obtained from the former KGB after the fall of the Soviet Union indicated that he drastically understated the extent of his espionage activities.
Stephen Glass scandal
In 1998, features writer Stephen Glass was revealed in a Forbes Digital 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.
Ruth Shalit plagiarism
In 1995, writer Ruth Shalit was fired for repeated incidents of plagiarism and an excess of factual errors in her articles.
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. The blog was removed from the website and Siegel was suspended from writing for the print magazine; 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.
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, 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. 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, reaching different conclusions.
As of December 1 2007, an article titled "The Fog of War" and bearing the byline of Franklin Foer, postdate December 10 2007, has been available for professional critique. In the article, Foer writes that the magazine can no longer stand behind the stories written by Beauchamp.
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)
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
1943-1983
The Christian Science Monitor, "TRB From Washington" John Beecher, contributing writer
1950s-1960s
1980s-1990s
1990s-present
- Fouad Ajami, professor of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University
- Scott Thomas Beauchamp, freelance writer, soldier
- Paul Berman
The New York Times Book Review and Slate , and he is the author of several books, including A Tale of Two Utopias and Terror and Liberalism....
, essayist, author Simon Blackburn, philosopher Alan Brinkley, historian Jonathan Chait, senior editor Jonathan Cohn, senior editor Michelle Cottle, senior editor Michael Crowley, 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 David Grann, senior editor Jacob Hacker, political scientist Johann Hari, British writer David Hazony, Israeli writer John Judis, essayist Tony Judt, historian Richard Just, managing editor Alvaro Vargas Llosa, writer Dana Milbank, senior editor Michael Oren, historian and author Camille Paglia, essayist Dale Peck, literary reviewer George Pelecanos, author Steven Pinker, cognitive linguist and Harvard professor Richard Posner, federal judge Hanna Rosin, senior editor Noam Scheiber, senior editor Peter Scoblic, executive editor Amartya Sen, economist Lee Siegel, cultural critic Joseph Stiglitz, economist Margaret Talbot, senior editor Michael Walzer, philosopher, essayist, author Alan Wolfe, public intellectual Gordon S. Wood, historian James Wood, literary critic Jason Zengerle, senior editor
Primary sources
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
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
The New Republic Online, offering online subscription
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