Dylan Byers Blog
TNR veterans protest Hughes' 'destruction'
By DYLAN BYERS |
Three former editors of The New Republic -- Hendrik Hertzberg, Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan -- have joined more than a dozen of their fellow TNR veterans in protesting the "destruction" of the magazine at the hands of owner Chris Hughes.
"As former editors and writers for The New Republic, we write to express our dismay and sorrow at its destruction in all but name," the editors and their former colleagues wrote in a statement, released Friday evening.
"From its founding in 1914, The New Republic has been the flagship and forum of American liberalism. Its reporting and commentary on politics, society, and arts and letters have nurtured a broad liberal spirit in our national life," the statement continues. "The magazine’s present owner and managers claim they are giving it new relevance while remaining true to its century-old mission. Instead, they seem determined to strip it of the intellectual, literary, and political commitments that have been its essence and meaning. Their pronouncements suggest that they hold those commitments in contempt."
TNR veterans protest Hughes' 'destruction'
By DYLAN BYERS |
Three former editors of The New Republic -- Hendrik Hertzberg, Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan -- have joined more than a dozen of their fellow TNR veterans in protesting the "destruction" of the magazine at the hands of owner Chris Hughes.
"As former editors and writers for The New Republic, we write to express our dismay and sorrow at its destruction in all but name," the editors and their former colleagues wrote in a statement, released Friday evening.
"From its founding in 1914, The New Republic has been the flagship and forum of American liberalism. Its reporting and commentary on politics, society, and arts and letters have nurtured a broad liberal spirit in our national life," the statement continues. "The magazine’s present owner and managers claim they are giving it new relevance while remaining true to its century-old mission. Instead, they seem determined to strip it of the intellectual, literary, and political commitments that have been its essence and meaning. Their pronouncements suggest that they hold those commitments in contempt."
The letter comes one day after a shakeup (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/the-new-republic-moves-to-new-york-
city-113343.html?hp=t3_r) that saw the resignation of top editor Franklin Foer and veteran literary editor Leon
Wieseltier, both of whom resigned due to differences of vision with Hughes, a 31-year-old Facebook co-founder who
bought the magazine in 2012. On Friday morning, more than two dozen of the magazine's senior and contributing
editors quit the magazine en masse (http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/12/new-republic-staffers-resign-en-
masse-199595.html) in protest.
Hughes now plans to move the magazine to New York and rebrand it as a "digital media company," a move that caused widespread outrage and confusion among the Washington-New York media establishment and the magazine's loyal readership.
"The New Republic cannot be merely a 'brand.' It has never been and cannot be a 'media company' that markets 'content,'" the former editors and staffers wrote in their statement. "Its essays, criticism, reportage, and poetry are not “product.” It is not, or not primarily, a business. It is a voice, even a cause. It has lasted through numerous transformations of the 'media landscape'—transformations that, far from rendering its work obsolete, have made that work ever more valuable."
"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," they continued. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."
The signers of the statement are: Peter Beinart (Editor), Sidney Blumenthal (Senior editor), Jonathan Chait (Senior editor), David Grann (Senior editor), David Greenberg (Acting editor), Hendrik Hertzberg (Editor), Ann Hulbert (Senior editor), Robert Kuttner (Economics editor), Robert B. Reich (Contributing editor), Jeffrey Rosen (Legal editor), Peter Scoblic (Executive editor), Evan Smith (Deputy editor), Joan Stapleton Tooley (Publisher), Paul Starr (Contributing editor) , Ronald Steel (Contributing editor), Andrew Sullivan (Editor), Margaret Talbot (Executive editor),Dorothy Wickenden (Executive editor), Sean Wilentz (Contributing editor), and Katherine Marsh (Managing Editor).
Hughes now plans to move the magazine to New York and rebrand it as a "digital media company," a move that caused widespread outrage and confusion among the Washington-New York media establishment and the magazine's loyal readership.
"The New Republic cannot be merely a 'brand.' It has never been and cannot be a 'media company' that markets 'content,'" the former editors and staffers wrote in their statement. "Its essays, criticism, reportage, and poetry are not “product.” It is not, or not primarily, a business. It is a voice, even a cause. It has lasted through numerous transformations of the 'media landscape'—transformations that, far from rendering its work obsolete, have made that work ever more valuable."
"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," they continued. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."
The signers of the statement are: Peter Beinart (Editor), Sidney Blumenthal (Senior editor), Jonathan Chait (Senior editor), David Grann (Senior editor), David Greenberg (Acting editor), Hendrik Hertzberg (Editor), Ann Hulbert (Senior editor), Robert Kuttner (Economics editor), Robert B. Reich (Contributing editor), Jeffrey Rosen (Legal editor), Peter Scoblic (Executive editor), Evan Smith (Deputy editor), Joan Stapleton Tooley (Publisher), Paul Starr (Contributing editor) , Ronald Steel (Contributing editor), Andrew Sullivan (Editor), Margaret Talbot (Executive editor),Dorothy Wickenden (Executive editor), Sean Wilentz (Contributing editor), and Katherine Marsh (Managing Editor).
Can you see the dripping self importance of these folks?
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