The New Republic (often abbreviated as TNR) is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts. It publishes 10 print magazines per year and a daily online platform. The New York Times described the magazine as partially founded in Teddy Roosevelt's living room and known for its "intellectual rigor and left-leaning political views".
History
1914–1974: Early years Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in humanitarian and moral passion and one based in an ethos of scientific analysis".Nuechterlein, James A. "The Dream of Scientific Liberalism: The 'New Republic' and American Progressive Thought, 1914–1920. The Review of Politics, Vol. 42, No. 2 (April 1980), pp. 167–190. Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du Lac. .
The New Republic was founded by Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, and Walter Weyl. They gained the financial backing of heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and her husband, Willard Straight, who eventually became the majority owner. The magazine's first issue was published on November 7, 1914. The magazine's politics were liberal and progressive, and as such concerned with coping with the great changes brought about by middle-class reform efforts designed to remedy perceived weaknesses in America's changing economy and society. The magazine is widely considered important in changing the character of liberalism in the direction of governmental interventionism, both foreign and domestic. The most important of the perceived changes was the emergence of the U.S. as a great power on the international scene. In 1917, TNR urged America's entry into World War I on the side of the Allies.
Even before the U.S. entered the war, the Russian Revolution had started in March 1917. During the interwar years, the magazine was generally positive in its assessment of the Soviet Union (founded in 1922) and of Joseph Stalin. TNR changed its position after the Cold War began in 1947, and in 1948, its leftist editor, the former Vice President of the United States Henry A. Wallace, departed to run for president on the Progressive ticket. After Wallace, the magazine moved toward positions more typical of mainstream American liberalism. Throughout the 1950s, the publication was critical both of Soviet foreign policy and of domestic anticommunism, particularly McCarthyism. During the 1960s, the magazine opposed the Vietnam War, but also often criticized the New Left.
Until the late 1960s, the magazine had a certain "cachet as the voice of re-invigorated liberalism", in the opinion of the commentator Eric Alterman, who has criticized the magazine's politics from the left. That cachet, Alterman wrote, "was perhaps best illustrated when the dashing, young President Kennedy had been photographed boarding Air Force One holding a copy".
1974–1979: Peretz ownership and eventual editorship In March 1974, the magazine was purchased for $380,000 by Martin Peretz, a lecturer at Harvard University, from Gilbert A. Harrison. Peretz was a veteran of the New Left, but had broken with the movement over its support of various Third World liberationist movements, particularly the Palestine Liberation Organization. Harrison continued editing the magazine and expected Peretz to let him continue running the magazine for three years. However, by 1975, when Peretz became annoyed at having his own articles rejected for publication while he was pouring money into the magazine to cover its losses, he fired Harrison. Much of the staff, including Walter Pincus, Stanley Karnow, and Doris Grumbach, were fired or quit and were replaced largely by recent Harvard graduates, who lacked journalistic experience. Peretz became the editor and served in that post until 1979. In 1980, the magazine endorsed the moderate Republican John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent, rather than the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter. As other editors were appointed, Peretz remained editor-in-chief until 2012.
1979–1991: Kinsley and Hertzberg editorships Michael Kinsley was editor (1979–1981, 1985–1989), alternating twice with the more leftleaning Hendrik Hertzberg (1981–1985, 1989–1991). Kinsley was only 28 years old when he first became editor and was still attending law school.
Writers for the magazine during this era included neoliberals Mickey Kaus and Jacob Weisberg, along with Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Sidney Blumenthal, Robert Kuttner, Ronald Steel, Michael Walzer, and Irving Howe.
It was widely considered a "must read" across the political spectrum. An article in Vanity Fair called it "the smartest, most impudent weekly in the country" and the "most entertaining and intellectually agile magazine in the country." According to Alterman, the magazine's prose could sparkle and the contrasting views in its pages were "genuinely exciting." He added, "The magazine unarguably set the terms of debate for insider political elites during the Reagan era."
The magazine won the respect of many conservative opinion leaders. Twenty copies were sent by messenger to the Reagan White House each Thursday afternoon. Norman Podhoretz called the magazine "indispensable, " and George Will called it "currently the nation's most interesting and most important political journal." National Review described it as "one of the most interesting magazines in the United States."
Credit for its influence was often attributed to Kinsley, whose wit and critical sensibility were seen as enlivening, and Hertzberg, a writer for The New Yorker and speechwriter for Jimmy Carter.
Hertzberg and Kinsley alternated as editor and as the author of the magazine's lead column, "TRB from Washington." Its perspective was described as center-left in 1988.Stephenson, D. Grier Jr., Bresler, Robert J., Freidrich, Robert J., Karlesky, Joseph J., editors, American Government, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, , pp. 166, 171
A final ingredient that led to the magazine's increased stature in the 1980s was its "back of the book" or literary, cultural and arts pages, which were edited by Leon Wieseltier. Peretz discovered Wieseltier, then working at Harvard's Society of Fellows, and put him in charge of the section. Wieseltier reinvented the section along the lines of The New York Review of Books and allowed his critics, many of them academics, to write longer, critical essays instead of simple book reviews. Alterman calls the selection of Wieseltier "probably... Peretz's single most significant positive achievement" in running the magazine. Despite changes of other editors, Wieseltier remained as cultural editor. Under him the section was "simultaneously erudite and zestful," according to Alterman."
1991–1996: Sullivan editorship After becoming editor in 1991, Andrew Sullivan took the magazine in a somewhat more conservative direction, but the majority of writers remained liberal or neoliberal. Hertzberg soon left the magazine to return to The New Yorker. Kinsley left the magazine in 1996 to found the online magazine Slate.
In 1994, Sullivan invited Charles Murray to contribute a 10,000-word article excerpted from his coauthored book The Bell Curve. The article, which contended that "African Americans score differently from whites on standardized tests of cognitive ability," proved to be very controversial and was published in a special issue together with many responses and critiques. The magazine also published a very critical article by Elizabeth McCaughey about the Clinton administration's 1993 health care plan. Alterman described the article as "dishonest, misinformed," and "the single most influential article published in the magazine during the entire Clinton presidency. James Fallows of The Atlantic noted the article's inaccuracies and said, "The White House issued a point-by-point rebuttal, which The New Republic did not run. Instead it published a long piece by McCaughey attacking the White House statement." Sullivan also published a number of pieces by Camille Paglia.
Ruth Shalit, a young writer for the magazine in the Sullivan years, was repeatedly criticized for plagiarism. Afterwards, the magazine began using fact-checkers during Sullivan's time as editor, such as Stephen Glass. When later working as a reporter, Glass was later found to have fabricated quotes, anecdotes, and facts in his own articles.
1996–2007: Kelly, Lane, Beinart, Foer, Just editorships After Sullivan stepped down in 1996, David Greenberg and Peter Beinart served jointly as acting editors. After the 1996 presidential election, Michael Kelly served as editor for a year. During his tenure as editor and afterward, Kelly, who also wrote the TRB column, was intensely critical of Clinton.
Chuck Lane held the editor's position between 1997 and 1999. During Lane's tenure, the Stephen Glass scandal occurred. Glass, who had been a major contributing writer under Kelly's editorship, was later shown to have falsified and fabricated numerous stories, which was admitted by The New Republic after an investigation by Kelly's successor, Charles Lane. Kelly had consistently supported Glass during his tenure, including sending scathing letters to those challenging the veracity of Glass's stories. The events were later dramatized in the feature film Shattered Glass, adapted from a 1998 report by H.G. Bissinger. Peretz has written that Lane ultimately "put the ship back on its course," for which Peretz said he was "immensely grateful." Lane resigned after he learned that Peretz intended to replace him.
Peter Beinart, a third editor who took over when he was 28 years old, followed Lane. He served as editor from 1999 to 2006.
In the early 2000s, the TNR added Buzz weblogs &c., Iraq'd, and Easterblogg, replaced in 2005 with the sole blog The Plank. The Stump was added in 2007 and covered the 2008 presidential election.
The magazine remained well known, with references to it occasionally appearing in popular culture. Lisa Simpson was once portrayed as a subscriber to The New Republic for Kids. Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, once drew a cover for The New Republic. In the pilot episode of the HBO series Entourage, Ari Gold asks Eric Murphy, "Do you read The New Republic? Well, I do, and it says that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
Franklin Foer took over from Beinart in March 2006. The magazine's first editorial under Foer said, "We've become more liberal.... We've been encouraging Democrats to dream big again on the environment and economics...." Other prominent writers who edited or wrote for the magazine in those years include senior editor and columnist Jonathan Chait, Lawrence F. Kaplan, John Judis and Spencer Ackerman.
In 2006, longtime contributor, critic, and senior editor Lee Siegel, who had maintained a blog on the TNR site dedicated primarily to art and culture, was revealed by an investigation to have collaborated in posting comments to his own blog under an alias aggressively praising Siegel, attacking his critics and claiming not to be Siegel when challenged by an anonymous detractor on his blog. The blog was removed from the website and Siegel was suspended from writing for the print magazine. He resumed writing for TNR in April 2007.
Political and foreign policy stances under Peretz The New Republic gradually became much less left-wing under Peretz, which culminated in the editorship of the conservative Andrew Sullivan. The magazine was associated with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and "New Democrats", such as Bill Clinton and Joseph Lieberman, who received the magazine's endorsement in the 2004 Democratic primary.