The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
The decline and fall of Newsweek motivated Bethany Shondark Mandel to ask yesterday about magazine preferences, curious about who subscribes to what. We subscribe to Commentary, The Economist, Garden & Gun, and Cook's Illustrated, and used to subscribe to The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Wired, and First Things, but there is a point where you can only read so much. New York magazine has improved dramatically and it would be the next subscription I get.
But the death of Newsweek - in print, at least - reminds me of how much I wish we had a mainstream journal which lives up to Henry Luce’s original mission with Time. Today's iteration is almost a slightly less pompous Newsweek, with just as much trollishness to its ridiculous covers. The original Time was a magazine which aimed to cover and distill the news of politics, economics, world affairs and culture for the nation’s rising middle class. Luce’s magazine leaned to the center-right, with a small-c conservatism that was seasoned with a populist respect for the middle class reader and an abiding love for America.
Luce's 1920s prospectus for the magazine included this “list of prejudices”:
- A belief that the world is round and an admiration of the statesman’s view of all the world.
- A general distrust of the present tendency toward increasing interference by government.
- A prejudice against the rising cost of government.
- Faith in the things which money cannot buy.
- A respect for the old, particularly in manners.
- An interest in the new, particularly in ideas.
There are certainly a host of quality magazines out there today. But all too many of today’s publications, right and left, are too heavily devoted to horserace politics, with politician profiles and short-term rough and tumble fights; or if they are interested in culture, they are essentially collections of reviews, often so dry and academic as to be very limited in reach.
There’s a space for this, certainly, and there’s plenty of smart writing done in that area. But I think there’s also space for a publication which steps back from this fray and devotes itself to the long game, emphasizing culture as much as politics, targeted at the mass market aspirational consumer as opposed to the politically obsessed. I do that a little in The Transom, but this is a publication that would have a much broader reach.
One additional note: magazines are actually doing quite well, moreso than any other form of media. Ad revenue has been up each year since the recession; paid magazine subscriptions continue to rise by about a 1-2 percent mark each year; this year, 181 magazines started while 61 closed. It's an industry which is more specifically targeted to niches but has stabilized generally even as the bottom has fallen out of the newspaper industry.
Until someone sets a basket of money on Ross Douthat’s desk to start the center-right Atlantic, I don’t think this idea is very likely to come to fruition. But you never know.
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Oct '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
The only time I look at a magazine is in the dentist office. I would not pay for a subscription to a print magazine and avoid the "behind the pay wall" online stuff, preferring what you and others like you, Ben, offer on Ricochet and elsewhere. Thanks for what you do, and what you do you do well.
Jan '11
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
I entirely agree, Ben.
If you ask Americans "who are we?" the answer isn't narrowed to partisan politics. Therefore, the magazines in which we presume to carry out a national conversation have to be broader than partisan politics. The fact that they're so narrow, and overwhelmingly to one side, dooms them to failure - first a failure in their mission and function, followed by failure in readership.
May '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
One of the things we need to get to work on starting 11/7 is driving the nails in the coffins of the mainstream media outlets as quickly as possible. NYT, WaPo, ChiTrib, LATimes, and all the locals that dot the landscape like so many pernicious toadstools. ABC, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, NBC and the rest.
We need to stop saying "ain't it awful" and push back as hard and as long as it takes to get them to change direction or go out of business.
"Print" dead tree journalism is over. I go "behind the paywall" for podcasts and sites like Ricochet, which I believe are the wave of the future.
Jul '11
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Ben Domenech:.
There’s a space for this, certainly, and there’s plenty of smart writing done in that area. But I think there’s also space for a publication which steps back from this fray and devotes itself to the long game, emphasizing culture as much as politics, targeted at the mass market aspirational consumer as opposed to the politically obsessed. I do that a little in The Transom, but this is a publication that would have a much broader reach.
I wish I could agree. For such a venture to have a market it would require nothing less than the return of what Dwight MacDonald called "middlebrow." I think that audience is gone for good.
Jul '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
The Economist has a sister publication called Intelligent Life. It's center-left and UK-centric, but otherwise exactly what you describe. Their photo-essays alone are worth the subscription.
May '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Hmm... having a bit of a hard time renewing my subscriptions to "George" and "The American Mercury." Maybe I'll try again later...
Jun '12
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
I have been a subscriber to The Week since its inception. While I believe the Editors' beliefs may shift to the left, (at least according the two short paragraphs written by its Editor in Chief, William Falk), it is my favorite magazine. The magazine is a "readers' digest" of sorts with contributions from nearly every form of media, including websites, foreign newspapers and personal favorites, National Review and The American Spectator. Over the years I have probably sold more than a dozen subscriptions. I think this may be the closest to the wish of Mr. Domenech.
Oct '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Proclaiming an enterprise of any sort non-partisan is the clarion call to the left to co-opt it. I'm happy with truth in advertising. How long after Luce died did Time begin its slide to the left? I don't know, but I'll bet they hadn't finished lowering the casket.
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
I would agree with this for the most part, but the leftward tilt of The Week and their lack of original content hampers their ability to fulfill this mission. What's more, it's one of the few places which has dramatically increased circulation in the past few years, which shows there's an appetite for this type of aggregation.
Apr '12
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
The Week is good but with online, most if the content is stale by the time it gets to print.
Mar '11
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Luce's prospectus sounds like a magazine worth reading--something that the magazine which he founded has not been in quite some time.
I wonder if people would even comprehend Point #1 anymore. What is a statesman's view of the world, they'd ask, and blink.
I'll second the call for Douthat to start the right of center Atlantic.
Apr '12
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
I liked the Economist for their reporting on the far reaches of the Commonwealth but the recent (last few years) Keynesian solutions to the US and EU growth woes is flawed and tiresome.I'd like to read publications that detail the nature of the interlinked world economy and foreign affairs without obvious left leaning editorializing.
May '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
A cross between The Economist and Atlantic, published by Roger Ailes, and edited by the late Michael Kelly. I'll sign up now.
The only subscriptions I have now are to Weekly Standard (for everything except Bill Kristol's weekly screed about how the GoP should be campaigning exclusively on promising another Afghan surge), and Popular Mechanics, because it has a lot of interesting techie stuff, and I like gadgets.
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Time began to shift leftwards even before Luce died, as charted in Alan Brinkley's very enjoyable biography, The Publisher. Despite being personally friendly with Eisenhower, Luce became quite enamored with JFK's candidacy (and later presidency), seeing him as the same sort of transcendent unicorn figure that most of the left would see a generation later in Obama.
But the magazine didn't fully go over the cliff until Luce retired from the publication. Reread the "list of prejudices" that Ben quoted above, and then compare it with their "Gorillas in the Mist" tone when the magazine chose "The Middle Americans" as their collective "Man of the Year" for 1969, and you'll get a sense of how quickly the rot set into the magazine in mid to late 1960s.
Edited on October 20, 2012 at 9:04pmMay '11
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
"I think there’s also space for a publication which steps back from this fray and devotes itself to the long game, emphasizing culture as much as politics, targeted at the mass market aspirational consumer as opposed to the politically obsessed."
You are absolutely right, but it won't be printed in the product of dead trees. That train has already left the station.
Nov '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Ben Domenech:
But I think there’s also space for a publication which steps back from this fray and devotes itself to the long game, emphasizing culture as much as politics, targeted at the mass market aspirational consumer as opposed to the politically obsessed.
Ben, are you familiar with Touchstone? I suppose it isn't exactly "middlebrow," as mentioned above--but it's certainly devoted to the long game in its emphasis on culture. It's pretty durn hard to put down, actually.
Oct '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
The time for a national conversation is over, if it ever existed. I think the perception of a more homogenous set of beliefs, or a wider consensus, in the past is a product of the paucity of outlets - it was expensive to own a printing press and distribute dead trees around the country.
In the modern world, why should the 'magazine' be a useful format anyway? Translating the idea of a magazine - which has the physical format it does because of the accidents of press configuration, ad-size and transportation requirements - directly into a website or, worse, an iPad app demonstrates a bizarre attachment to the purely contingent.
Just as the rise of the eBook has liberated fiction and non-fiction from the artificial constraints of length, so the dematerialisation of news and comment will birth new types of 'conversation'.
So I hope the conservative well-wisher with a basket of money spends it on something else than trying to resurrect a dying format.
Jul '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Dropped US News & World Report, Harper's and the Atlantic in the 80's, the Economist in the 90's, Liberty and Reason in the year following 9/11. Currently, it's National Review, Commentary, Macworld, VFW and Chaucer Review (hard hitting analysis of "almost" current events). If the Weekly Standard supported electronic subscriptions, they would probably make the list. (Hint, hint) I also RSS a good chunk of the Daily Caller and Breitbart.
I found the Atlantic to be a bit pretentious and passive aggressive in the face of rampant Reaganism. I have seen the attempt to classify the magazine as center-right, mostly based on James Fallows writing on military matters in a manner too tolerant for the spit on everything and everyone military set. My recent samplings of the Atlantic revealed a positively hilarious adolescent rag with occasional competence. In my dotage I find Fallows to be unintentionally funny. Jeffrey Goldberg's defense of the Santorums' embrace of their deceased new born was a surprising moment of humanity, but his latest on Benghazi is ill-informed thin gruel aimed at demonizing the political topic. There was a genuine conservative for a moment, but she moved on.
Aug '10
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
Ben Domenech:
There’s a space for this, certainly, and there’s plenty of smart writing done in that area. But I think there’s also space for a publication which steps back from this fray and devotes itself to the long game, emphasizing culture as much as politics, targeted at the mass market aspirational consumer as opposed to the politically obsessed.
This sounds almost like a description of Foreign Affairs, if you added domestic issues, rooted out the rampant leftism, and banned diplomats from writing self-serving "my proposed international framework is the best" pieces.
Given the trajectory of the conservative movement, any conservative magazine of this sort would have to focus almost exclusively on the Big Idea debates that conservatives love. You could make a long form version of blog post vs blog post, try to outline a cohesive conservative worldview in the aggregate of its articles, and ban all political inside baseball and "look at this gaffe!" stories. The problem, of course, is that such stories fill up the news cycles now.
I don't think you could get a story-driven conservative magazine going. There just doesn't seem to be a point now.
Mar '11
Re: The Death of Newsweek and the Next Conservative Magazine
I think City Journal does a reasonably good job of covering some of these issues and is one of the best political "magazines" (is available in print, but I subscribe online) period.
The Claremont Review also covers some of them, as does The New Criterion.
I don't find them dry or academic, but others may.