A.J. Liebling, the early New Yorker's celebrated press critic (he invented the genre) once wrote:
The pattern of a newspaperman's life is like the plot of 'Black Beauty.' Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.
You might say the same thing of magazine publishers. Political magazines are something close to public trusts-key elements of a robust democracy--but most are privately owned. Like newspapers, they are at the mercy of the whims of owners who are sometimes astute at the publishing business, and sometimes inept; sometimes kind masters, and sometimes capriciously cruel.
The New Republic, where I worked for a decade, was once America's leading liberal magazine of essay, reporting, and criticism. In the past half-century, TNR went through a convoluted odyssey. A chain of owners, despite foibles and partly illiberal views, made room for talented editors and writers. The magazine's most recent incarnation, under editor Frank Foer, has been generally excellent.
The latest of these owners, the billionaire co-founder of Facebook Chris Hughes, hired a chief executive, Guy Vidra, who was openly contemptuous of magazine journalism. The duo unceremoniously announced last week that they were firing Foer, changing the magazine's business model to a "vertically integrated digital media company," moving the headquarters to New York, and cutting frequency to ten times a year. This in turn prompted widespread outrage, mass resignations, and almost obsessive commentary in the media community. I was one of those former staffers who signed a group letter calling Hughes's move a disgrace.
Let's step back for a moment and unpack what's going on here. There was a time when magnates invested in publications because they were cash machines. But in today's economy, newspapers and magazines run losses and the typical investor/owner is more like a hobbyist-bored with just making money and attracted to the cachet and power that being a publisher brings.
In a capitalist economy, of course, owners have the right to do whatever they like with a property once they purchase it. At the same time, a magazine or newspaper is not like other forms of property, especially an iconic one like The New Republic. With its reduced publication schedule and the departure of nearly all its staff, our public discourse and liberal community are both diminished.
Yet Hughes is not wrong to appreciate that the future of publishing will be a blend of digital and print, and he is well positioned to experiment with various models. The issue is not his digital savvy, but whether he respects the literary and political mission of a journal like The New Republic. Everyone in publishing, from The American Prospect to the New York Times, is trying to figure out how to pay the cost of generating expensive content and make it available in a digital form that seldom covers the expense. Maybe Hughes will divine the secret sauce. Nonetheless, as more than one critic has observed, if Hughes wanted to launch a vertically integrated digital media company, he could have done so from scratch and let The New Republic be. His wealth is so vast that Hughes could surely afford the annual subsidy, otherwise he should not have bought TNR. He scooped up a trophy property only to eviscerate it.
We should also be a little prudent before pronouncing The New Republic dead. It will not be what it was-the departure of a talented staff guarantees that-but it could well be something innovative and interesting. There is no shortage of aspiring writers, editors, and techies looking for work.
It is incautious and even churlish to write premature eulogies. Our former fellow and staff writer, Ezra Klein, keeps writing the Prospect's obituary. In his most recent piece, Ezra declared that the Prospect "is retrenching to its roots as a policy journal." In truth, our latest issue is all narrative journalism, and rather compelling at that. I hope Ezra finds a moment to read it. Given the still unproven business model of Vox, somebody may one day mourn its glory days if its bottom-line backers get weary of bearing losses, or merely get bored.
Looking around the world of serious magazines, one appreciates how precarious our habitat is. The New Yorker, which has never been better, is safe for now, since Si Newhouse, who leads parent company Condé Nast, appreciates what a gem it is and has managed to complement print with digital. But he is now 87, and who knows how the next Newhouse generation will feel. The New York Review of Books, chock full of book ads, is said to run in the black. But what happens when Bob Silvers, who has run the place for more than a half-century, calls it a day? Harpers continues, but only through the personal generosity of publisher Rick MacArthur. There are rumors that The Nation may also reduce the frequency of publication of its weekly print magazine.
Here at The American Prospect, we are a dot-org. We have never been a commercial business, and have never been bought and sold by billionaires. The magazine is governed by a non-profit, volunteer board of directors. It's not for sale. This is both a strength and a weakness. The plus is that we will never be sold down the river because an owner's whim changes. The minus is that we are always beating the bushes for money; and as our readers know, we suffer the occasional financial lurch. Still, here we are.
Only yesterday, we were the upstart. Now after 25 years, we are legacy media in the best sense. Like other print magazines, we are also using digital forms, but in a fashion that respects the mission of journalism. Many New Republic editors and writers are friends, former staffers, and occasional Prospect authors. They deserved better.
With the departure of most of The New Republic's staff, the Prospect becomes an even more important tribune of American liberalism. We also take pride in giving our authors dry stalls.
