A Swan Song for the Old New Republic
But when it comes to the magazine’s politics, one cannot get much of any sense what it will stand for, if anything. The publication will remain, he says, a “journal of progressive values.” And that, in a nutshell, is precisely what I fear. As Walter Russell Mead has said in a series of columns at The American Interest, what he calls the old progressive “blue social model” is dead as a doornail. (Mead talks about this at AEI next week.) The current editor who will oversee the magazine on a day-to-day basis, Richard Just, is a good man. He too talks about producing a grand new “vision of magazine journalism,” and of hiring new writers and editors. But from his pen, also, one finds not a word about the political and intellectual vision the magazine will have.
To find out what that might be, one must turn elsewhere, and the discouraging answer can be immediately found in a New York Times blog post. Hughes, the new owner and editor-in-chief, one learns, “helped to run the online organizing machine for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.” Let us, then, look no further. Just in time for the 2012 campaign, TNR will become the major cheerleader for Barack Obama, in what promises to be a close race against Mitt Romney, who will most likely be the Republican Party’s candidate.
Does anyone really think that Hughes will let his new magazine be anything but a vehicle for a second Obama administration? Yes, since Hughes is gay and a leader in the “fight for same-sex marriage,” as the Huffington Post reports, the magazine will undoubtedly pressure the president from his left to make the administration’s position more amenable to that of the magazine’s editors and writers. But on the issue of the nature of liberalism and social policy, on the major issues of foreign policy, I suspect its critical edge — indicated most recently by the magazine running a piece by John McCain in favor of intervention by the U.S. in Syria — is likely to disappear, out of fear that articles like that will only serve to hurt the president’s electoral campaign.
Yes, we can expect articles from the president’s left, like those by Michael Kazin against Republican business conservatism, or David Greenberg on why Obama should talk like the good left-liberal that he is and not pretend to be a centrist, or like the one by Jeffrey Rosen on how Obama should really fight for civil liberties. But don’t hold your breath to find some by Charles Krauthammer on the vacuous nature of contemporary liberalism, or Charles Murray on equality (the magazine, one must remember, raised a storm years ago by printing Murray’s piece on his early controversial book co-authored with Richard Hernstein, The Bell Curve). Will they ask Mead, for example, to expand his blue social model blogs into a major article, something the old TNR would have done in a flash?
So, I am not optimistic about the fate of the new TNR. The last thing we need is a magazine slightly — very slightly — to the right of The Nation. Nor do we need another New Yorker, in which Hendrik Hertzberg’s predictable left-liberal views dominate the political commentary — and, yes, he too came from TNR as an old editor — and where its editor-in-chief David Remnick stands by the likes of Seymour Hersh as a major investigative reporter, despite the devastating expose of him in the new Commentary by a former TNR editor, James Kirchick. Indeed, if I were Hughes, Kirchick would be the first hire I would make and I would reinstate him as a top senior editor, since he is, in my estimate, perhaps our finest young journalist, whose output and quality make him second to none. Again, I do not hold my breath.
So, this is a swan song and sad goodbye to the old TNR. I wish the magazine well, and perhaps I will turn out to be very wrong. But as a natural pessimist, and for good reason, I only expect the worst.
Like Mark Cuban, fooling around with liberal TV media by hiring Dan Rather for his fledgling HDNet, following his Broadcast.co windfall, or Steve Wozniak, trying to recreate the mythical Woodstock era of love during the early 80s with his Apple millions, I’m guessing this is simply going to be a toy for Hughes to play with.
He may have hopes to become next New Great Liberal Media Barron via this cachet of The New Republic’s name, and as long as he’s willing to swipe his debt card freely he can probably get a lot of liberal ‘name’ journalists to write their stuff under his masthead instead of elsewhere. But if his goal is to simply use TNR to back the boilerplate liberal talking points and candidates of the day, to the point you know what the magazine is going to say even before the latest edition is printed, it will have all the intellectual heft and relevancy of the political coverage of Rolling Stone or The Daily Beast a few years from now.
The New Republic is like quicksand-people keep buying it and get sucked under. I predict Hughes will be searching for a buyer before long. There are too many left wing mags out there–including almost all of the media–who needs yet another one.
Why expect or hope for quality and at least a ray or two of objectivity when the entire media at large sinks deeper into biased corruption seemingly by the day. A fine Arts section but the politics, Johnathan Chait for example, are now pretty much boilerplate leftism. Build up your own home library & take shelter.
Sen. Rand Paul today unveiled his FY2013 budget, “A Platform to Revitalize America,” a plan that would balance the budget in five years, significantly reduce spending, and restore fiscal order to Washington.
http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=476
If you look at the comments on ths from the usual left-wing peanut gallery at the New York Times, you’ll see that Mr. Radosh is unfortunately right:
“I was a regular reader for almost 20 yrs, until the magazine jumped the shark and became a lapdog for Bush and Cheney after “9-11″; all you had to do was read the British and German online papers to come to the conclusion that there WERE no WMD’s in Iraq. TNR is no longer the progressive voice of reason; for that you have to read Z Magazine or any European or Canadian newspaper for true, objective journalism [!!!].”
“Neo-con Peretz was a disaster to progressive-liberal journalism, and became not much more than a pro-Israel activist.”
“Let’s hope he clears out some of the neo-con brush. It’s about time.”
“Martin Peretz is a discredited, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab racist who has poisoned the New Republic and made it impossible to look at without disgust. ”
“If the magazine is to regain its position as a voice of American liberalism, then it should keep Martin Peretz as far away as possible from anything written about Israel.”
“I stopped subscribing to TNR when it became so hawkish. I find The Nation much more balanced & commonsensical. ”
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/new-republic-gets-an-owner-steeped-in-new-media/
I wouldn’t even call these people “liberals.” Anyone who thinks that Z Magazine and The Nation are balanced and objective is so far off to the left that it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen into the Pacific Ocean by now.
Ron, not to be mean or anything, but who really reads The New Republic anymore? These vestiges from the old paper media are pretty much gone by now. Sure, you may have some elites in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles reading it, maybe even a few people in college libraries, but it’s the blogs that are taking over the country.
The New Republic, even on line, could only DREAM of getting as many “hits” as the Drudge Report. Maybe some college journalism students still read it and are influnced by it, but with more blogs like “Hot Air,” “PJ Media,” and about a dozen other conservative blogs, The New Republic is just another voice out there in cyberspace, shouting to be heard. In its prime, it cerainly did influence people. But today, the “Youtube Generation” will be swayed by just about anything in cyberspace and the older folks will be getting much of their news from cable TV. It’s the Andrew Breitbarts of the world who will shape modern opinion, just like Randolph Hearst did 100 years ago. Yellow Journalism has moved to Cyberspace, and it works. The person who wins the next election is the person who can scream the loudest on line. Sad, but true.
Why enable your own demise? Why not take yourself away from facebook and to those conservatives who own facebook shares, why can’t you short them?
Thanks Ron-I used to be a TNR reader. Gave it up awhile ago and now I see it is going further down the tubes. Back in the day it used to be influential but now I think you’re rght it probably will become a mouthpiece for Obama.
Just what the country needs. Another MSM mouthpiece for Obama.
Well, Martin Peretz is to be admired and thanked for decades of brilliant work. If Harvard were still a real university, it would bestow upon him an honorary doctorate. But since he already has a real one, and since the only faculty member there of any spine or intellect is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature, Ruth Wisse, I doubt he’d even accept an honor from such a dishonorable institution. If it weren’t for Professor Wisse, I’d like to see the place sink into the Charles River.
Godspeed, Dr. Peretz.
I cannot wish the same to TNR under its new 28-year-old owner. I see nothing good ahead from the once-illustrious magazine.
Ron Radosh is as always an essential read. I can only hope that he’s wrong about the future of The New Republic. In my experience in talking with him, Richard Just has been a thoughtful guy. I can only hope that he keeps the magazine from becoming a print adjunct to the Obama campaign
– Fred Siegel
I have never been a fan of TNR. Have read it too few times in the recent years to even remember who might have been contributors. Having said that, perhaps this new direction it’s taking is not a bad thing. When you have a base of less than twenty percent and even some of those are alienated by the turn, maybe they’ll get the message. If it’s a vanity publication (I don’t know Hughes or of his wealth) with a gay rights agenda as well as other awkward positions, let him burn through several millions before he gets the hint. The only downside is that between now and the election Obama has another platform. But then, he’s always had this one, so what’s the difference.
Am I wrong here? Be gentle.
On Hughes, Obama, and same-sex marriage:
It depends on who he thinks is listening.
I expect him to carry water for Obama, and reassure his social-liberal readers that Obama’s professed opposition to SSM is just lip service.
The only way he would ever attack Obama on the issue (from the left) is if he ordered to provide Obama with a “Sistah Souljah” moment. I.e., emit a hysterical over-the-top gay-lib rant so that Obama can pose as a defender of normality.
Ron Radosh’s piece on TNR is compelling. The magazine has been on a downward spiral, and the prospects for its rejuvenation are bleak. This was once an important magazine, but apart from the rare appearance of articles by authors such as Yossi Klein Halevy, Jeffrey Herf, Bob Kagan, or the Radoshes, there has been little in it worth reading. Nor is there any value added in a publication likely to situate itself somewhere between The Nation and the New Yorker. I cancelled my subscription a few months ago–after having read TNR regularly since college. Regret to say I haven’t missed it and, with the latest news, the likelihood of that happening is even more remote now.
Professor Radosh and Robert J,
As many commenters on this fine column have said, at its height TNR was sublime with all the writers Robert J mentions, as well as the present Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren (http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/michael-oren-great-loss).
I, too, have stopped reading it, mainly because of the content but also because the print is painfully small for a reader who is neither an ant nor an adolescent.
The New Republic of today reminds me of the joke Woody Allen tells in the first scene of Annie Hall: two women are at Catskills resort, complaining. “The food is so terrible,” one says. The other agrees, adding, “and such small portions.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrxlfvI17oY)
A toy for Mr. Hughes is the right description. Like Hollywood celebrities, the internet billionaires did not amass their wealth through superior journalistic mastery or outstanding athletic performance. They lucked out on a crap-shoot. But they yearn for association with the stars in those fields, so they believe they can buy their way into the inner circle. They purchase floundering basketball teams, they buy failing magazines, earn the derision of their heroes, meddle with the the management, ensuring their demise. Mr.Hughes will “recruit” from the same-old progressive stockyards as the NYT, the Nation, the New Yorker, and Salon and try to out-obama them. What everybody quaintly calls the “leftist journalists” will rejoice in the easy money and extra “exposure” to the to the dwindling ranks of the Neo-Coms. Sing no sad songs for what never was anything but a Socialist propaganda. mouthpiece.
HEH: “The first thing on [The New Republic's] web site at the moment is a lot of high-minded blather in honor of the new owner (‘we will continue the great tradition … since 1914 …etc. ….’) immediately followed by ‘Is Female Masturbation [really] the last taboo?’”
Thanks RR for the peek at TNR (not The National Review)and its list of alums. I wonder who’s been financing the magazine lately and who will do so from now on. Do you think it will receive help from Campaign Obama or its cutouts?
Michael
I take for granted that TNR’s philosophical slant will shift even more to the postmodernist left. Chris Hughes most assuredly believes that the values of fairness and equality demand he royally screw conservatives. They are supposedly vile and disgusting and must therefore be dealt with harshly. Truth is in the eye of the beholder and objectivity a vicious myth employed by reactionaries to keep the downtrodden in their place. Hughes may even allow outright lies to be published—if they can serve to highlight “greater truths.”
– Sullivan take over as editor?
Uh, you’re only half-joking. I would not be surprised at all to see Andrew come back, followed in short order by a special edition devoted to Trig Palin and a diagram of Sarah Palin’s uterus.
From my “reactionary” point of view, I think it is necessary to continuously examine, and when called for, refine, one’s political beliefs, regardless of where one is on that spectrum. It goes without saying that this must be a principled examination, anchored to the bedrock of our Civilization – the Ten Commandments come to my mind.
To do that takes guts and character – it’s much easier just to drift with the party line of the moment. It is my belief that the left in our country seems to be more averse to such an “examination of conscience”, than is the right. Thus, the future course of the TNR magazine will be interesting to watch.
The real death of the classic Peretz New Republic occurred when Peretz fired Michael Kelly over Kelly’s criticism of Al Gore in the 1990s. I subscribed for about 15 years, and Kelly really was the last chance for the magazine to right its course after the decline it suffered when Michael Kinsley left. Peretz tried to repeat his success with Kinsley by hiring Peter Beinart (sp?). Unfortunately, Beinart was never talented enough to run more than a college newspaper. He and his initial mentor Andrew Sullivan filled the staff of the magazine with left wing hacks and it became irrelevant. Nevertheless, Peretz himself has always been an interesting writer. Here’s hoping he winds up at PJM.
“and It is going to be a regular visitor for a lengthy time”