Sunset of the republic

The editors of the main American liberal magazine The New Republic went after the dismissed editor -in -chief

The influential Washington Liberal Journal of The New Republic has lost its key employees on December 4. Because of the disagreements with the new owner (and general director) of the publication, the editor-in-chief Franklin Foer and the Literary Editor Leon Weiselter resigned. As a sign of solidarity, several dozens of full-time and emergency authors and editors left with them, thereby provoking the most loud media scandal in the United States in recent years. The dismissal threatened the release of The New Republic; Ultimately, his publication had to be postponed until February 2015.

The dismissal of Foer is considered the sunset of The New Republic and the tyranny of the young owner, but at the same time - a natural and expected event. Medusa found out how it turned out that the editorial office of the magazine, which was called "the favorite reading of American presidents in the chair No. 1" ceased to exist.

The New Republic was founded in 1914 and always adhered to liberal views. By the 1960s, the magazine turned into one of the main liberal publications of the United States and a model of high-quality American journalism with all its traditional formats-from editorial columns to multi-page and carefully verified investigations. Like any publication with a long history, TNR has repeatedly found himself in the center of scandals. One of them (and, perhaps, the most famous) almost destroyed the reputation of the publication in the bud-in the late 1990s it became known that many articles of The New Republic Stephen Glass were invented from beginning to end.

In the middle of the zero, TNR suffered the same fate as the rest of the American press - a reduction in circulations and the departure of advertisers, and, as a result, losses. Until the last events, The New Republic was released once every two weeks with a circulation of 50 thousand copies, the annual losses of the publication, according to The New York Times, amounted to about $ 5 million.

Since 2012, The New Republic has been owned by Chris Hughes, one of the founders of the Facebook social network. The young investor at first was almost not interested in the editorial policy of the magazine, except that TNR began to write more often about events outside the political life of Washington. It was Hughes that suggested Foer, who had already edited TNR in the past, to return to the magazine and again engage in quality journalism. The new owner in the publication was perceived as a person who agrees to endure TNR as he is (with all his losses), in order to preserve the tradition of Washington liberal journalism. At first, this is how Hughes behaved.

For the first time, Hughes moved away from the prevailing image when he appointed the new CEO of TNR in October 2014 - the former head of Yahoo! News Guy Vidru, a person from Silicon Valley, like the owner of the magazine. Vidra and Hughes decided to turn TNR into a “vertically integrated media digital company” and move from Washington to Manhattan.

Franklin Foer did not like this idea. During meetings with the editor -in -chief, Hughes often reasoned that we needed more “tasty” topics, paid attention to the editors of the importance of the Internet and proposed creating a new the New Republic application for mobile phones that would send a notification of urgent news. Hughes claimed that the editor -in -chief did not share his plans for the future of TNR; Foer, in turn, did not understand what the owner wanted from him - there was little chance of agreeing.

As a result, in December, Foer was taken by Gabriel Snyder, who worked in The Atlantic Wire (editor) and Bloomberg (advisor to DJital). It is assumed that with a move to New York, TNR is concentrated on its online component, the paper version of the magazine will be released 10 times a year-twice as less often than now.

“The New Republic is a kind of confidential fund that pursuing socio-distant goals. All previous owners and publishers of TNR understood this, and now the legacy of the magazine and trust in it are destroyed, ”the open letter of the former employees of The New Republic says.

After the dismissal of Foer, the numerous necrologues of The New Republic came out in the American press: many publications, mainly a liberal sense, were called the old chief credit “the death of classical journalism”. The Daily Beast publication in caustic material directly wrote that the “Facebook Prince” was destroyed by The New Republic. The article gave reports of journalists who condemned the dismissal of Foer and regretted that quality journalism was sacrificed to business interests.

The New York Magazine in an article on TNR “Elegy The New Republic” writes that the collapse of the editorial office of the magazine reports the death of traditional journalism and misunderstanding the owner of the role of the publication in the public life of the country. Hughes and Vidra are operated on with the words “brand” and talk about the number of pages views, but not a word speak of journalistic values, the author of the article Jonathan Chait, who once worked in The New Republic, complains.

“Frank Foer leaves The New Republic not because it is not good enough as the editor -in -chief. He leaves because Chris Hughes is not good enough as the owner, ”writes Chai in the New York Magazine.

Ezra Klein, editor -in -chief and creator of the VOX.com project, reacted to the Tea column by the Tea column. According to Klein, the situation with The New Republic does not really look very beautiful, especially when you consider that Frank Foer learned about his dismissal post -fact. However, it is too early to bury the magazine, according to him.

According to Klein, TNR, under the leadership of the new chief editor of Gabriel Snyder, can bloom, although the New Republic will never become the same - simply because the old magazine has long died, like the other previously influential political magazines of Washington. The US president on board his plane is most likely reading the iPad, not TNR (as John Kennedy and Bill Clinton did), and the events of Washington’s political life, in addition to printed magazines, cover dozens of blogs and online publications, including Vox and Politico.

“You cannot criticize Foer, in which TNR has published a sufficient number of outstanding materials. But you can criticize TNR for the desire to see 100 thousand people or less in your potential subscribers. This would never please the owner with his hopes for a monthly online audience of tens of millions of people, ”Klein writes.

Another publication on VOX notes that the dismissal of Foer is far from the first and far from the darkest episode in the history of the magazine. Marty Perez, the previous owner of The New Republic, published frankly racist articles and columns in the journal, invariably held Israeli’s position on the conflict in the Middle East, and there were practically no African Americans among the editorial staff. Many journalists did not at all share the position of pepper, but were in no hurry to quit. When the new owner fired the editor -in -chief - the same white and wealthy representative of the American society, like them, followed protests.

The owner of The New Republic reacted to the obituary with a column in The Washington Post. According to Hughes, TNR plays too much a role in society so that these dismissals mean the death of the publication. “If you take care of the publication and want it to live for a long time, you do not leave. You roll up sleeves, work for two for the sake of struggle for your ideals in a constantly changing world, and you fight. And for this publication with a 100-year story, it is worth competing, ”concludes Hughes.

Pavel Borisov