Founded in 1989 by David Horner and Alex Novak, The Kenyon Observer began as a conservative, undergraduate political journal at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. In addition to publishing student commentary, the journal has featured interviews with scholars and pundits such as Norman Podhoretz, Andrew Sullivan, Lt. Gen. William Odom, Benjamin Barber, Francis Fukuyama, John Agresto, Mark Strand, Victor Davis Hanson, David Brooks, Paul Gottfried, and Harvey Mansfield.
After the journal briefly ceased publication after the fall of 2009, it was re-established in the fall of 2011 by Jonathan Green '14 and Gabriel Rom '14. The current iteration of the Observer features contributions from Kenyon students of all political ideologies, keeping with the Observer's tradition of publishing high-quality student commentary but no longer adopting a conservative label.
Many contributors and editors of the journal have continued their career in political journalism, writing and editing for some of the most influential political publications, including The Public Interest, The National Interest, The American Interest, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The New Criterion, Commentary Magazine, The American Spectator, Forbes, and The New York Sun.
Alumni of The Kenyon Observer have also gone on to Washington D.C. to work for prominent think tanks and groups, such as the Cato Institute, the Project for the New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Intercollegiate Studies Institute,and Regnery Publishing. David Skinner, an Observer alumnus, is Editor of the NEH's Humanities Magazine. Another notable alumnus of The Kenyon Observer is Condoleezza Rice's chief speechwriter.