The Weekly Standard

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The Weekly Standard
Type Weekly Political Magazine
Format Magazine

Owner News Corporation
Publisher Terry Eastland
Editor Fred Barnes
William Kristol
Founded September 1995
Political allegiance conservative
Headquarters 1150 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Circulation 83,000 per week

Website: WeeklyStandard.com

The Weekly Standard is an American conservative[1] opinion magazine published 48 times per year. It is owned by News Corporation and made its debut on September 17, 1995. Its current editors are founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes. The Weekly Standard produces The Daily Standard with commentary and articles written for the magazine's website. Other frequent contributors include Christopher Hitchens, P.J. O'Rourke, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum, Stephen Schwartz, Matt Labash, and Stephen F. Hayes.

Contents

[edit] Support

The Weekly Standard lists praise here: [1][2]

[edit] Criticisms

In an interview with senior Standard writer Matt Labash published by JournalismJobs.com in May 2003, Labash was asked why conservative media outlets had enjoyed recent popularity. Labash responded, somewhat jocularly:[2]

Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it actually.

Scott McConnell, writing in the paleoconservative magazine The American Conservative, wrote that "[I]f Rupert Murdoch’s purpose was to make things happen in Washington and in the world, he could not have leveraged it better. One could spend 10 times that much on political action committees without achieving anything comparable [to The Weekly Standard]."[3] McConnell describes the Weekly Standard as pushing for war against Iraq and tying Saddam to al Qaeda: "[I]n the first issue the magazine published after 9/11, Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly, two employees of Kristol’s PNAC, clarified what ought to be the country’s war aims. Their rhetoric — which laid down a line from which the magazine would not waver over the next 18 months — was to link Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in virtually every paragraph, to join them at the hip in the minds of readers, and then to lay out a strategy that actually gave attacking Saddam priority over eliminating al-Qaeda. The first piece was illustrated with a caricature of Saddam, not bin Laden, and the proposed operational plan against bin Laden was astonishingly soft."[3]

Although the publication "loses more than a million dollars a year", Rupert Murdoch, the head of the News Corporation, has dismissed the idea of selling it.[4]

[edit] Editorial staff

Editorial staff who often appear with by-lines in the magazine:

[edit] Contributing editors

[edit] References

  1. ^ Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard, JournalismJobs.com, May 2003
  2. ^ Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard, JournalismJobs.com, May 2003
  3. ^ a b Scott McConnell, "Murdoch’s mag stands athwart history yelling, “Attack!”," The American Conservative, 21 November 2005.
  4. ^ "Murdoch's Game", The New Yorker, 2006-10-16

[edit] External links