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Quote of the Day: Farewell, TWS
In honor of the departed Weekly Standard, I wanted to share a favorite quote from one of their finest writers, Matt Labash. He wrote this during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary.
“As one who was never terribly enamored of Hillary Clinton’s personality to start with, I grudgingly admit to enjoying her recent near-tears transformation. Plenty of critics concede her rarely seen emotion was heartfelt, but also that it was due to the 20-hour-day rigors of the campaign trail, making her perhaps the only candidate ever to win the New Hampshire primary because she needed a nap. Still, it was refreshing to watch her punch through the icy crust of her own phoniness, so that the molten core of artificiality could gush forth.”
Every magazine of any persuasion should be in a bidding war for his prose.
Published in General
Sad to see this institution dashed against the rocks. I like Dan Foster’s suggestion of a magazine in exile. Here’s to hoping!
That last sentence is perfect.
Andy Ferguson is no slouch either.
What will happen to all of their amazing podcasts that are part of my Ricochet feed? Can they be saved? How will I know if Jonathan Last ever finishes building those shelves in his basement?
Hahahaha! the molten core of artificiality
He’s not only a great writer, he’s a great fly-fisherman — and writer about fly-fishing.
He wrote a great series a few years ago about fly-fishing with Vice President Cheney.
I think John Podhoretz wants the Weekly Standard writers to join him at Commentary magazine.
“I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysentery.” — Woody Allen in Annie Hall, 1977
Well, if Weekly Standard and Commentary merge, what would be the name of magazine be?
Weak Tory?
Stan Lee Men?
Lee’s Stand and Comment?
Stand Comment Enter?
Weak Tan Dark Men Tory?
For those lamenting TWS’ departure who wish to donate to Clarity Media Group in lieu of lighting a twenty on fire, I just checked and the “subscribe” button on the main page still works.
The Standard died?
That was nice. I love good writing. Thanks, Jon!
I figured the magazine was pretty much done when they used the inside of their front cover for a pro-abortion ad by Catholics for a Free Choice.
When was that?
Did they have less than 9 nine months before termination?
I think magazines can feel pain around 20 weeks before termination.
Two years ago. Magazines have a longer gestation period.
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering orange whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Since victory cannot be mine let me go to pieces while still attacking thee, though tied to thee, thou damned orange whale! Thus, I give up the spear!
The barbed prose was published and the stricken orange whale flew, dragging Kristol and all down with it.
(With apologies)
Simply a case of the marketplace determining the worth of a platform.
This is quite an article.
I had no idea about the Lee Smith part.
Let’s hope that we can sustain a competitive American marketplace such that publicly available platforms experience the same phenomenon displayed here.
Any business entity makes decisions regarding what the business will offer and what it will tolerate. Ricochet has had experience with this very matter with the root being differing opinions in many cases about the same politically related subjects, although the immediate cause for action was not that. So some of the very best and varied opinions are no longer available on this platform because they acted in violation of the platform rules. Those rules and other choices about the nature of any given platform potentially affect the business outcome. A competitive marketplace takes care of this.
Sort of.
Essentially none of the “highbrow intellectual” political magazines make money – be it the Weekly Standard, National Review, the New Republic, etc. They’re all afloat thanks to the donations from rich people. Even the outlets that don’t lose a ton of money often rely heavily on authors who work for think tanks (or lobbying organizations) who can write for essentially free.
So none of these magazines are really competitive businesses as much as they charitable organizations.
Of course, charity is also a valid component of a free market. But the way that marketplace works is a little different than what your comment implies: it’s not so much that a magazine like the Weekly Standard needed to compete for readership in order to survive, it needed to compete for the favor of its sugar daddy. I have no sympathy for TWS for losing that favor, because in the end that was their number 1 job and they obviously failed at it.
It had to compete for and achieve enough readership to cause the sugar daddy to see its worth. Competitive marketplace, it makes no difference whence the support originates.
Don’t blame Trump for the demise of the Weekly Standard
Its value lay in the fact it was an insider magazine
link
Per the link provided by @rufusrjones it appears that while TWS, NatReview, and NewRepublic all relied on donations the model for TWS, and NewRepublic differed from that of NatReview. The former relied on one mega-donor, and when that donor got tired of support, they were done. The network of NatReview supporters is much broader and it is specifically structured as a non-profit unlike TWS.
I read that same article, but wanted to keep my comment simple. There’s also certainly more than that simple difference – after all, the Weekly Standard also ran
pledge drivescruises like NR does, so there must have been some other donors in the picture than just Murdoch/Anschutz.I imagine there’s a lot of interesting stories lurking in the background here for the few of us who are interested in such arcane (and ultimately rather irrelevant) matters. For example, from its founding through most of its existence the Weekly Standard was under the fairly benign protectorship of Rupert Murdoch – why didn’t they try to restructure at some point in the late 90s/early 2000s when they were hitting their peak readership/visibility?
Since nearly everyone at TWS has close ties to NR, I’m sure they were all aware of their different structures and the implications of those differences, such as the independence that diversifying your donor base/income structure brings.
But all we have done in these last few comments is point out that public business entities gather their financial support from different types of sources and when that disappears they close up shop.
Well in any case, the digital revolution has obliterated entire industries and jobs including typesetters, magazines, Rights-Managed stock photography, and more. So this is partly due to that in addition to the rest of it.
Vox.com
Statist idiots writing for statist idiots. All of those guys are totally loaded. How does that happen?
Minnesota had a local journalist leave for Think Progress. Smart guy. Now he’s a total hack. Aaron Rupar. What he does is damn silly, but I’m sure it’s better for him economically.
Indeed, we all seem to be in violent agreement.
Nonetheless, since the Weekly Standard would appear to the casual observer to be a typical magazine surviving off advertising and subscription fees, it’s worth reminding ourselves that it’s real customer was not the readers but Philip Anschutz. This reminder is particularly pertinent since many of the right-wing cheerful obituaries currently circulating seem to be forgetting or wilfully ignoring that fact.
Then again, I also think it’s worthwhile to constantly remind people that – in a similar vein – Facebook’s users are not its customers. Even if everybody is theoretically aware of that fact, it’s all to easy to be lulled by the illusion that Facebook’s primary imperative is to its user base.
And nothing exemplifies the impact of the digital revolution on “highbrow political punditry” than the Ricochet phenomenon.
When Ricochet first let its members publish their own pieces on the site, lots of readers – both members and professional writers – remarked at how many of the member-written articles were of nearly the same quality as professional pundits, despite the fact that Ricochet members were paying for the privilege of having their articles published here.
Which shows that there are many people who can write nearly as well as paid pundits for a much, much lower fee – a fact that the Federalist leveraged to its advantage (and Ricochet’s detriment) for quite a while. And even though most of these amateur pundits can’t write at Andy Ferguson levels, a magazine whose quality is “almost as good” as the big boys while paying “pennies on the dollar” of the big boys will have quite the competitive advantage.
If I am not wrong, the whale dies in Moby Dick.
Actually no. Magazines like that often lose money, but find patrons. However, instead of allowing the Weekly Standard to find a buyer, the parent company decided to kill it, hoping to reap its mailing list. The Weekly Standard did not die, it was murdered.
I don’t know what others will do, but I will decline to be transferred to a new magazine, and I will remove the Washington Examiner from the list of periodicals that I review. I will also demand a full refund of my subscription.
It is not too late for the Washinton Examiner to release the Weekly Standard, and its name so that it can be reborn. But if they don’t, the Washington Examiner is dead to me.