Discussion: Mass Exodus At 'The New Republic'

[system1]

Discussion for article #230856

[estamm]

Who the fuck gives a shit.

[sashasmom]

I do not buy for a minute that the mass resignations are due to a bigger emphasis on the digital media side. Many publications have had to do that over the last few years. I smell another right wing takeover as the reason, where the two billionaire corporate owners want to put the right wing spin on everything, and put tight constraints on the journalists. The corporofascist takeover of our media is almost complete.

[jsfox]

A lot of us who thought highly of the New Republic and it’s writing.

[enon]

haven’t read tnr in years; but i gotta say these billionaire tech-boyz are revealing themselves to be some of the most ruthless business leaders since the gilded age…

[alliebean]

Interestingly enough, I’ve been a new reader of the New Republic over the last year or so and I didn’t realize it was a ‘liberal’ magazine.

[dnl]

Mass resignations making way for the new regime…

No need for a 'new broom for the new guys…

[andrew_long]

So Beutler, Morozov, and Traister are staying? That’s… weird.

[mjshep]

So we’ve lost Anne Applebaum and Ryan Lizza. Whatever shall we do now? Probably not notice, along with most of America.

[juliagrey]

I don’t know them/their work by name, could you expand and tell me why it’s weird that they’re staying?

Maybe they have “capital B” Bills and have little faith that they can pay them with whatever other work they could get.

It must be rough for people to resign on principle when they’re living at the edge of their salaries, no matter how high the salaries are.

[alliebean]

Brian Beutler came from TPM. That’s the only one I know.

[josh_m]

I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think it’s about politics. I also don’t think it’s about print vs digital either. I think Hughes wants to make it into a profit generating operation. Not just break even or be in the black. But be in the start up, enterprise space. And for better or worse, The New Republic as it’s existed for a century can’t possibly operate that way. That’s what this is about.

[ronbyers]

The New Republic is gone, can the New York Times be far behind?

[andrew_long]

Yes of course, paying the bills generally trumps most things. But these three are basically in the same mold as all the other Senior Editors who are leaving: excellent writers and editors, and in Beutler’s case, reporter and analyst. Notwithstanding the glut of similarly qualified media wonks who are now going to be scrambling to land on their feet somewhere else, just like the others, each of these three would be likely to get multiple calls asking them to lunch. I just wonder if this means that Beutler, being a newish TNR hire, not encumbered with the weight of the institutional history and loyalty, sees himself as an important part of the restructuring. He’s worth it, he would make their reporting and politics analysis at least continue to be a must read, and I would wish him well, but… it feels weird.

[juliagrey]

But what the heck can he do at this stage of the game in the news/social narrative space that’s different enough to be a big-profit generating enterprise? You buy a magazine, you’re not looking to market doohickeys, so he must be looking at an online participatory something-or-other, which has been soooo Done.

[k_in_va]

Absolutely. I was a fan many years ago, long before there was such a beast as the internet, and the biggest threat to serious magazines was rising paper costs and second-class postage rates.

And, no, it’s not that I’ll miss the old TNR because I’m also revealing myself to be a dinosaur (though far from TNR’s century mark). I’ll miss it because it once was a bastion of good writing and literature, carefully thought-out and written articles. Is there still a place in our world for that, or is everything to be diminished to the profundity of quickly-fingered 140-character impressionistic twaddle?

[randyabraham]

I’ve read some NR articles by (TPM alum) Beutler and they were pretty solid.

[randyabraham]

That’s because for the most part they are libertarians.

[jsfox]

And mores the pity, but then again most of America is made up of intellectually bereft idiots.

[andrew_long]

Yes, absolutely. If they are intent on retaining him and giving him a much larger hand in shaping the new venture, then that’s a great move. But it would be the sole intelligent move Hughes has made, so, I don’t have all that much hope it’s actually going to happen.