The New Republic

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The New Republic

Type Weekly Magazine
Format Magazine
Owner Martin Peretz
Editor Franklin Foer
Founded November 7, 1914
Political allegiance liberal/centrist
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Website: http://www.tnr.com/
For other uses, see the New Republic disambiguation page.
The acronym "TNR" redirects here. It may also refer to the typeface Times New Roman .

The New Republic is an American journal of opinion published weekly and with a circulation of between 40,000 and 65,000. It also has a website offering online subscription to the magazine. The editor-in-chief and co-owner is Martin Peretz. The current editor is Franklin Foer.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] 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.

[edit] Peretz ownership

In 1975, the magazine was bought by Harvard University lecturer Martin Peretz, who transformed TNR into its current incarnation. 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. Under Peretz TNR has advocated both strong U.S. support for Israel and a muscular U.S. foreign policy. On domestic policy, it has advocated a self-critical brand of liberalism, taking positions that range from traditionally liberal to neoliberal to neoconservative. It has generally supported Democratic candidates for president, although in 1980 it endorsed the moderate Republican John Anderson, running as an independent, rather than the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter or the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan.

During the 1980s the magazine generally supported President Reagan's anti-Communist foreign policy, including provision of aid to the 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 Kosovo during the Yugoslav wars.

In the 1980s, the magazine became known for its originality and unpredictability. It was widely considered a "must read" across the political spectrum. Credit for its quality and popularity was often assigned to its editor Michael Kinsley, a young graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School whose wit and critical sensibility were seen as enlivening a magazine that had for many years been more conventional in its politics. Another guiding force behind the magazine was Hendrik Hertzberg, a former writer for The New Yorker and speechwriter for Jimmy Carter. Hertzberg and Kinsley alternated terms as editor in the 1980s and also alternated as the author of the magazine's lead column, entitled "TRB from Washingon." Its perspective was described as left-of-center in 1988.[1] In 1990, Andrew Sullivan 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.

A final ingredient that led to the magazine's increased stature in the 1980s was its "back of the book," or literary pages, which were edited by Leon Wieseltier. 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.

After Sullivan stepped down in 1996, Michael Kelly served as editor for a year, then Chuck Lane held the position between 1997 and 1999. During Lane's tenure, the Stephen Glass scandal took place. Peter Beinart followed Lane and served as editor from 1999 to 2006. Franklin Foer took over for Beinart in March of 2006.

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.

[edit] Magazine circulation

The magazine has seen a steady decline in circulation since 2000. According to the publisher's reports, subscriptions dropped from 85,904 in 2002 to 61,124 in 2003, a decrease of 29% in one year [2]

[edit] 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.

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 TNR 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].

[edit] Controversies

[edit] 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 had 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, titled Shattered Glass, based on a 1998 article in Vanity Fair[5].

[edit] Ruth Shalit plagiarism

In 1995, writer Ruth Shalit was fired for repeated incidents of plagiarism and an excess of factual errors in her articles [6].

[edit] 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 attacking his critics and explicitly claiming not to be Lee Siegel.[7][8] The blog was removed from the website and Siegel was suspended from writing for the print magazine as well. [9] Lee 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.[10]

[edit] Editors

Before Wallace's appointment in 1946, the masthead listed no single editor in charge but gave an editorial board of 4-8 members. Walter Lippmann and Edmund Wilson, 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.

[edit] Ownership

The magazine is owned by Martin Peretz, New York financiers Roger Hertog and Michael Steinhardt, and Canadian media conglomerate CanWest. [11]

[edit] Famous contributors

Ordered by period and within period by name:

[edit] 1910s-1940s

[edit] 1950s-1960s

[edit] 1980s-1990s

[edit] 1990s-present

[edit] Trivia

  • Editor Franklin Foer is the brother of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and the author of How Soccer Explains the World : An Unlikely Theory of Globalization (Harper Collins 2004, ISBN 0-06-621234-0).
  • Lisa Simpson is portrayed as a subscriber to The New Republic for Kids. Matt Groening, the Simpson's creator, wrote for TNR.
  • In the premier episode ("Entourage (Pilot)") of the HBO series Entourage, Ari Gold is quoted as asking 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." The episode aired originally on HBO on July 18, 2004, and is also available on DVD and through various cable on-demand services.

[edit] References

  • 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

[edit] 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

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ 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
  2. ^ The State of the News Media 2005: Magazines - Audience. Journalism.org. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
  3. ^ "Obligations", The New Republic, 2006-11-27. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  4. ^ Martin Peretz. "A Message From TNR'S Lieberman-Loving NeoCon Owner", 2006-06-23. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
  5. ^ Buzz Bissinger. "Shattered Glass", Vanity Fair, 1998-09.
  6. ^ "Diversity Had Nothing to Do With Reporter's Deceit", Washington Post, 2003-05-13. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
  7. ^ http://www.tnr.com/blog/show_comments.mhtml?b=culture&pid=33961
  8. ^ http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/09/franklin_foer_a.html
  9. ^ http://www.tnr.com/suspended.mhtml
  10. ^ [1]
  11. ^ a b Carr, David. "Franklin Foer Is Named Top Editor of New Republic", The New York Times, February 28, 2006.
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