Wick Allison

Wick Allison, birth name Lodowick Brodie Cobb Allison (born March 17, 1948), is an American magazine publisher and author. He currently is the owner of D Magazine, a monthly magazine covering Dallas-Fort Worth, which he co-founded in 1974, and the principal owner of People Newspapers, which he purchased in 2003. He also serves as president of the non-profit American Ideas Institute, publisher of The American Conservative.

Personal

Allison was born in Dallas, Texas, and is a sixth-generation Texan. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971. He served as editor of the student humor magazine Texas Ranger and earned a degree in American Studies. Upon graduation, he served in the White House on the President's Commission on Campus Unrest and subsequently joined the United States Army. He attended the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, where he developed his business plan for D Magazine before dropping out. Allison converted from Methodism to Catholicism in 1978. In 1983, he married the former Christine Peterson and has four daughters. Allison and his wife had a child with developmental difficulties, which was discussed in a profile of Allison which was published by the Washington Post.

Career

Magazine publishing

Allison co-founded D Magazine, a monthly magazine covering Dallas, in 1974, with backing from Dallas investor Ray Lee Hunt. In 1981, he and a group of investors purchased Sport Magazine, which they sold in 1984. He went on to found and publish Art & Antiques in 1984. In 1985, Allison was asked by William F. Buckley, Jr. to join the board of directors of the National Review, and in 1980 he became its publisher, succeeding William A. Rusher. In 1981 or 1982 Allison sold his company Allison Publications, publisher of Art & Antiques. In 1993, he resigned as publisher of National Review. In 1995, he and investor Harlan Crow repurchased D Magazine, and in 2001, Allison bought out Crow to become the magazine company's sole owner. In 1993, Allison edited a new edition of The Bible To Be Read As Living Literature, published by Simon & Schuster. He is also the author of Is That In The Bible? (Dell, 1992) and Condemned To Repeat It: History Lessons For Leaders (Viking Penguin, 1998).

In 2011, he was named president and CEO of the American Ideas Institute, which publishes The American Conservative magazine in Washington, D.C.

In February 2013, Allison launched "D: The Broadcast," a two-hour daily morning talk show, on local Dallas independent station KTXD, but the magazine ended its affiliation with the show in August of the same year.^[1]

Political views

In September 2008, he published an article in D Magazine entitled "A Conservative For Obama", in which he endorsed then Senator Barack Obama for President.^[2] In May 2011, he recanted the endorsement citing "serial disillusionment" with the two major US political parties.^[3] However, in September 2012, Allison told The Daily Beast, "I will probably vote for Obama, unless I have a Gary Johnson–inspiration in the voting booth. (My vote in Texas is wasted anyway)...Romney is the opposite of conservative, with a plan that is fiscally reckless and a foreign policy that is unnecessarily militant. Obama has done about the best that could have been done, considering the united GOP opposition in Congress. My questions about Obamacare and my disappointment that we are not already out of Afghanistan are not enough to make me embrace a candidacy that even George W. Bush would have been repelled by—and, having had time to reflect on his own record, perhaps is.”^[4]

References