All this talk about how we need to treat the successful better was interesting to me in part because the idea of what success means in the media is so variable today, e.g. Megan McArdle is a success because she got David Bradley to give her a position at his money-losing magazine. Here’s Justin Fox, a writer I normally like a great deal, talking about what a great success Marty Pertez has been (as the owner of The New Republic); he gives no evidence other than that Eric Alterman likes it.
The New Republic now has a circulation of 60,000. It has been sold and resold and moved to a biweekly schedule. I realize it’s a tough media environment but National Review, which is a pretty similar magazine, has nearly four times the circulation. Harper’s and Mother Jones (which aren’t that similar to TNR), also have nearly four times the circulation. And Harper’s and MoJo doesn’t have their reporters whoring themselves on Joe Scar and Tweety every damn day.
The New Republic is beloved by certain elite media types because its particular brand of smarmy, neoliberal Harvard dining hall bullshit is similar to conversations they themselves had. It has become an enormous failure, intellectually, morally, and financially.
This is the game that is always played. Liberals have to respect the success in viewership that Fox has. They have to! Or they just don’t understand Murka! And when some nutjob husband of an heiress decides to turn a once liberal magazine into a Liebercrat rag, driving circulation into five figures in the process, they have to respect that too, or they’re intellectually dishonest hacks who don’t enjoy puzzling through complex arguments or whatever.
Remember this, peasants: Marty Peretz works harder than you ever will.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think I’m gonna read the link, life is short and Peretz and McMegan both give me the bile churns. But it seems to me TNR was spluttering itself to death four or five years ago when Marty sold 2/3 of the magazine in return for a guarantee that they would always publish his spittle-flecked, racist mind-poops.
BGinCHI
Remember, nothing sucks out your soul like success.
And, power corrupts, but absolute power at a magazine corrupts assholes absolutely.
c u n d gulag
Yes, Marty works hard. It takes a lot of hard work to fuck up a major periodical that was once one of the leading lights of theliberals and progessives. You don’t fuck up The New Republic sitting on your ass.
If I married a multi millionaire woman who let me run a magazine, I’d fire myself if it turned out as bad as TNR.
BTS – Eric Alterman hate, HATES, Marty! But, of course, that’s a long line.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The links are to Eric Alterman and Justin Fox. I don’t like Alterman much but Fox is really good, not Felix Salmon good but close (as econo-bloggers).
JoePo
I pledge to dedicate my 30s to making a ton of money in the laziest way possible. Now, how to become a staff writer on How I Met Your Mother.
kdaug
Let these fucking jackasses waste their money however they want. Free markets, baby!
Carnacki
The people at New Republic(an) try to sell their souls, but really no one is still buying the magazine.
burnspbesq
My brain’s been battered, and scattered all over Manhattan, so I’m staying out of this thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Molly Ivins once said, “I know Eric Alterman, and I like his daughter”. She chose her words carefully. A lot of people feel that way, from what I understand.
I read Chait’s blog, and sometimes Cohn’s and I like them. I see the links and headlines for Peretz and it’s embarrassing stuff that would embarrass RedState or Jane Hamsher, depending on the topic.
burnspbesq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t mind paying $15 a year to support Chait and Cohn. I’d rather that Peretz didn’t get any of it, but what can you do?
BGinCHI
Can’t the Nation wait for the TNR in a dark alley and just bash its brains in?
You know, metaphorically.
Brachiator
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Great freaking thread title. I tried to think of a better one, but I’m shattered.
El Tiburon
Fox wrote:
DougJ, why do you go on about this?
Alterman hate? Really? In print he is one of the most astute and critical minds on the left. I love reading his stuff and that he is so in-love with his insider cred.
But in person? Oy vey.
Omnes Omnibus
I think some of the lingering influence that TNR has is due to its history. It once was an important liberal and intellectual organ. Like the Atlantic and to some extent Harper’s, I want to like it. I just can’t.
Lev
Now you’re really trying to provoke Sully, aren’t you? Going after his pal Peretz and all.
All I’m going to say is that Peretz’s greatest success has been in cultivating lots of successful and often generally decent friends, who stand up for a man that clearly doesn’t deserve their loyalty. And I’m not just talking about Sully either.
CT Voter
TNR is still being published?
Was that sprezzatura’s online home, or am I conflating web sites? ‘Cause if it was sprezzatura’s beat, count that as another reason people just aren’t into TNR these days.
Well well well. It was TNR:
He was successful. Also too.
eemom
Don’t mind the maggots.
ChrisS
Success is being recognized by your peers as a success.
Lev
For a while a few years back, I kept hearing Marty Peretz and thinking of Amir Peretz, the former Israeli Labor Party leader who was pro-peace. Then Amir had to go and support the 2006 Lebanon adventure, which indicated a weird cosmic convergence of the two Peretzes. Unfortunately, only one Peretz lost his job over that one.
Felonious Wench
“Success” is a nepotism game, and that’s why I find this whole, stupid “but the rich work hard” debate so ridiculous. The poor don’t have the connections that people make over a familial and professional lifetime, from university days on. Hard work matters, but if someone doesn’t have that network of connections or a way to build them, they’re not going to get to Sully’s elite status of “successful, and therefore should be able to keep their money.”
FW, determined to drink until the world looks somewhat sane, and only at +1
Omnes Omnibus
@Felonious Wench: Why do you hate your liver?
Alex S.
I usually like TNR, except for Marty Peretz. But they’re not made for these times. I like that they approach political issues from a cultural point of view and emphasize long-term developments and trends. They’re a hybrid somewhere between political blog, cultural magazine and politcal science journal. Considering that you can get the blog portion of the magazine via internet, you’re left with a print edition that represents an extinct ideology (liberal hawkishness) and tries to cover all issues without any specialization. And I guess that weeklies, or bi-weeklies in general are slipping out of fashion right now. It’s probably just a question of time until Cohn and Chait find another home, probably at the NYT.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Lev: Ha! And yes, unfortunate indeed.
I do the same thing all the time. Of course in this moment I can’t come up with any examples, other than when Israelis start to talk about “Barack” and I’m like “aren’t they being awfully familiar with the President of the United States of America?”
Zifnab
@ChrisS: Which is why it’s so imperative that we acknowledge the success of the successful. Because if we’re not constantly fawning and praising and masturbating over the coolest kids on campus, how will they know they’re still cool?
burnspbesq
@Felonious Wench:
Sorry to hear you’re planning suicide. Been nice knowin’ ya.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@El Tiburon:
I loved his book so I started reading his blog and his responses to readers were just beyond awful. I’ll take Bob Somerby over him. (Admittedly, I still like Bob Somerby.)
Warren Terra
And The Nation, which is a genuinely leftist rag (often too far to the left for me, which within the liberal arc maybe isn’t that hard), is published on cheap paper, has only the lowest-rent of ads (because it was never “the in-flight magazine of air force one”, because it doesn’t have glossy pages and beautiful photos, and because, for all I love them, Mother Jones and Harpers are clearly far more upmarket), has been published and has remained consistently radical for well-nigh 150 years, has at least 4 times the circulation of The New Republic, as well.
cat48
Tweety has David Corn, of MoJo, on abt 3 days a week or more. Funny, b/c he’s usually on w/Buchanan.
Nick L
There’s a lot of great stuff at TNR – Chait and Cohn, yes, but also McWhorter, Plumer, and The Book is plain fantastic (http://www.tnr.com/book). I also like that their website often reprints old articles from TNR; for instance, they had nice collection of Niebuhr a while back.
Now, there are plenty of hacks, beyond just Peretz – Scheiber, Dionne (does anyone besides me fucking hate that guy?), etc. – and they have their noses firmly in the Ivy League-Beltway-Very Serious mentality that ignored the damage done to our country over the past several decades. I also think their foreign policy credo was much better suited for the Reagan-H.W.-Clinton years than it is today.
But it really is a pretty decent rag, despite Peretz’s mismanagement and general assholism. I think you’re being a bit harsh when you say “it has become an enormous failure, intellectually [and] morally.” There’s plenty wrong, but I think there’s enough worth salvaging to hope for a reborn TNR.
TuiMel
At one point, when I was emerging from my stasis in the muddy middle, I began casting about for places to read “liberal” ideas. As a result, I subscribed to TNR for a period of time. Before long, I found the magazine – to put it mildly – out of step with my evolving views. But, I was not moved to do anything about my subscription. Then I noted the covers began to use this weird, lurid art. When the issue with Ahmadinejad as Satan arrived (though I think the man is a menace in most important respects), that – for some reason – was the last straw. I cancelled my subscription and have rarely looked back. Marty is a neo-con bigot – nothing more or less.
burnspbesq
Aw, crap. I was hoping that the Yankee fans would have to watch the Rangers celebrate in their house.
Calming Influence
I wish I had said that.
[You will, Calming, you will.]
burnspbesq
@BGinCHI:
As a former Nation subscriber, can I just sort of chuckle at the idea that it’s any better, in any way, than TNR?
How’s it feel to be in a relegation battle?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Nick L:
I do like Jon Chait a lot and the magazine has been better the past couple years, aside from foreign policy stuff (which I hardly ever read).
But..there’s a lot to answer for.
MikeJ
@burnspbesq: I just hope I don’t have to spend another halloween forcing trick or treaters to say “fuck the yankees” before they get candy.
kommrade reproductive vigor
They can’t give away on 7th Avenue.
AK the official business and economics editor emeritus of Carmen Road Elementary School
Marty Peretz works very hard . . . at what, I have no idea.
BGinCHI
@burnspbesq: I thought you were talking about The Nation being in a relegation battle, or TNR, but then I got it. So depressing.
“You’ll never walk alone” is starting to sound like a bad joke.
The Nation, btw, has its faults, but it’s at least not run by a d-bag.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Warren Terra:
I don’t love the Nation either. I do like American Prospect, Washington Monthly, and Mother Jones a lot.
Linda Featheringill
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
:-) You too? They bandy that name around in print, yet.
And then I realize that Obama doesn’t have a monopoly on that name and I can move on.
Nick L
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
No question. Maybe I was too strong in hoping for a reborn TNR; instead, better liberal magazines should simply scavenge TNR’s good stuff.
But I do think TNR is better than The Nation, which is just a step above HuffPo these days.
marcopolo
Have at one time or another had subscriptions to the Nation, TNR, American Prospect, the Atlantic, Harpers, Washington Monthly, and Mother Jones. The only magazine I would probably take now would be Rolling Stone, Harpers, or the Atlantic but I am not into having dead trees sent to me in the mail on a regular basis.
On a different topic, can we please hope that this news item is the start of nails banging the coffin shut on Mark Kirk in the Illinois senate race? The skinny is Kirk held a Skype fundraiser in Beijing (albeit with only 12 US businessmen on the call from there) then the next day voted against a measure that would have closed a loophole allowing US businesses to ship jobs overseas.
The 30 second ad here really writes itself. Here’s to hoping.
New Yorker
This whole “worked harder” shit is where the arguments against demonizing “success” lose me. I’ve worked 3 different jobs this year. One as a shoe salesman, one as a Kaplan prep course instructor, and one as a consultant managing the operations of a calling campaign.
The one where I felt like I “worked hardest” was the one where I was paid the least and treated like shit: the shoe sales job. The other two jobs pay me well and very well, respectively, and yet I don’t feel like I’m “busting my ass”. Sure, they require a lot more responsibility and intellectual prowess, but that doesn’t feel like “hard work” to me the way a shitty retail job does.
So can someone please explain to me what the fuck is meant by “hard work” in the Galtian overlord sense? I really don’t get it.
FlipYrWhig
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: I still read The Nation, although some of that is out of nostalgia for the pre-blogosphere era. The art and film guys are intolerable (hey, another movie from the Iranian new wave, I’m sure to check that out the next time I’m at the suburban mall) and Alexander Cockburn is worthy of his surname. But the rest of it is pretty cool, IMHO. Even Alterman, when he’s not being repetitive.
I also get Harper’s and still enjoy that, apart from the occasional pretentious opening editorial about how everything sucks and if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention. I don’t need glossed-up dead trees to hear that message.
John O
I really enjoy that you’re not letting this go, DougJ.
I don’t have the skeelz to express how fired up the whole “rich people need our love or at least respect” thing with Joyner/Sullivan made me.
Where do these people live? (Oh, that’s right: With other rich people.) In any case, if they had any self-awareness and actual life experience they may have figured out by now that there are rich people with whom you wouldn’t shower without your wallet, and poor people you’d gladly hand your baby to for a weekend. For some reason, this part is left out of the argument.
People who equate money with success are weird. Freedom? Sure. Security? No problem. But “success?” Pretty narrow definition if you ask me.
MikeJ
@New Yorker: What they mean is IGMFY.
walt
Do liberals really have to respect Fox because of its ratings? I catch a whiff of that from self-interested gasbags like O’Reilly but anyone else? If that’s the case, Drudge really does rule the Internets and People Magazine the print media.
The New Republic is very much an odd duck of a respected journal because it has good writers. Cohn and Chait are first-rate. It has the ethereal Leon Wieseltier splitting subtleties for the sake of something unknowable. And the venerable Stanley Kaufmann must be 100 by now. The Peretz problem is easily negotiated – don’t read him. Whether it’s an undeserved reputation or a cachet that’s outlived its bouquet, TNR is interesting for being problematic. It’s probably not going to be around much longer, and when it goes, few will note its passing.
Lev
@FlipYrWhig: Cockburn is indeed aptly named. I remember him banging the drums over that whole Cynthia McKinney security incident as an example of racism run amok, completely impervious to the reasonable explanations as for why it happened.
Also, McKinney is crazy and an exaggerator.
MikeJ
@walt:
Marty’s fans will have to move on to Stormfront.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Sitting on your ass and thinking of things for other people to do.
arguingwithsignposts
Here is a sort of serious question for you. Everyone seems to acknowledge that one of the failures of the “village” is the fact that all of the villagers are located in NY or DC (maybe Boston). Would it be viable for someone to publish a policy magazine that was published outside the village?
(laughing like hell as an aside about Joyner’s “Outside the Beltway” moniker)
Something, say, that refused to publish think pieces from anyone located in either of those areas, taking advantage of academics and writers from across the nation (Molly Ivins would have been perfect for this type of magazine). I suppose MoJo or Harpers may already be filling this niche, but I don’t read either of them enough to know for sure.
BGinCHI
@arguingwithsignposts: Yep, that’s what’s not making dents in the bigger conversation.
Blogs like this one and others sourced outside beltways tend to have a much better BS detector and can also offer perspectives not connected to “some say.”
There are also local weeklies, and they do yeoman’s work reporting local and regional political news. They also do lots of investigating and often break or contribute to stories that get out to the MSM (or blogs). The Chicago Reader, warts and all, has excellent reporters and is a much-needed anodyne for anyone who unluckily reads the Trib (fucking GOP shills) and the Sun Times.
Brachiator
@arguingwithsignposts:
Boston used to be the intellectual center, then it shifted to New York and DC. In England, London is an obvious center, with Oxford and Cambridge grads dominating. In South Asia, Mumbai is an obvious political and intellectual hub.
Even in the Age of the Internets, there still tend to be geographical units of association.
Warren Terra
I actually subscribe to the Nation (along with the American Prospect, the Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, and Harpers). I do so because I think we need a far-left soapbox in this country, and there’s a fair bit there I do agree with. It’s just the fact that they publish the execrable Alexander Cockburn and too many of his friends, along with big sloppy one-sided mash notes to bugbears of the right such as Castro and Hugo Chavez that makes me frequently regret supporting them.
But I do think that The American Prospect deserves far more blog love than it gets. Here’s a magazine that is all about promoting the next generation of liberal public intellectuals, especially bloggers, and has cultivated the careers of Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and Adam Serwer, along with a whole host of people I like less well but who are still providing what little balance we get in public life (say, Spencer Ackerman, Dana Goldstein, others who escape me at the moment). The magazine is relentlessly serious of purpose and dedicated to promoting wonkishness of the left and puncturing the nonsense of the right. It’s not as glossy as Mother Jones, and not as well-written as Harper’s, but it’s really the workhorse of the moderate left.
ETA When I praise the writing of Harpers, I mean the long-form essays, not the (nowadays) poorly chosen clip pieces in the front, nor the overwrought screeds written by people who would like to be Lewis Lapham but lack both his experience and his writing talent.
burnspbesq
@marcopolo:
It pains me to admit this, but I am old enough to have once been a subscriber to Ramparts magazine. Wouldn’t mind seeing a new mag with that attitude and a little more journalism.
Mark S.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a link to the various circulation figures of magazines?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@walt:
Halperin says so.
AhabTRuler
My biggest complaint about MoJo is that they’ll sell ads to anyone and they whore the ever-living-fuck out of their mailing list. The redeeming feature is that they are totally up front about it and explain that such practices are why the sub is only $10 a year.
Still, I have gotten a
lotmetric fuckton of DMA from the weirdest collection of .ORGs.Cat Lady
I just love that Newsweek was sold for a dollar, and that was apparently a bargain. I think that’s the future of all of the news/opinion publications – there are too many sources of information, and everyone can give an opinion. Celebrity gossip – that’s where the money is. What’s Perez Hilton’s daily site hits? What does he make in a year?
The only way to do real journalism is to be a non-profit – it has to be considered to be a public service, because the profit motive has and will continue to destroy journalism. Alterman’s Altercation was the first place I read real media criticism, and it’s gotten a thousand times worse in the few short years since he (and Somerby) first chronicled all of the FAIL.
Zifnab
@walt:
Given that cable news ratings tend to be rather anemic on a good day, it’s kinda like being the smartest kid on the short bus.
But if Glenn Beck wants to pound the drum, pretending 3 million viewers is a mandate from heaven, then I see no reason to correct him.
ornery curmudgeon
@Zifnab: “But if Glenn Beck wants to pound the drum, pretending 3 million viewers is a mandate from heaven, then I see no reason to correct him.”
Would you like a reason, Zifnab … How about the fact image and perception are the Right-wing methods for creating a false reality?
SIA
OT, but Joe Sestak doing better than I expected in the PA-Senate debate.
Toomey is a cold effing cretin par excellence.
me
Maybe Marty should just merge TNR with Commentary and The Weekly Standard; that would get their circulation up to the level of the National Review. Then fire the merged entity into the Sun.
Bill Murray
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: I guess that means I have to respect the Jonas Brothers and Transformers: The Movie, too. I don’t think I can do that, although I do respect Megan Fox’ parts
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Murray: I have had people tell me that the PT Cruiser is a good car because a lot of them were sold.
beergoggles
There is cause for celebration in that the market for liebertard racism has shrunk to 60k.
Or perhaps they just moved over to the NRO/Standard side where such racism is celebrated.
something fabulous
No love for The Progressive? It can be a little one-note, but home of Molly Ivins! And all that…
Anne Laurie
@Warren Terra:
__
You’re getting one wish, at least — I just got my Novembe issue in the mail, and they brought back Lapham to announce that the ‘Notebook’ is being discontinued. Sigh. No, none of the new contenders were Lapham, but it still had at least a one-out-of-three-or-four “worth re-reading” ratio, IMO, which is damned good for monthly journalism.
P.S. You don’t subscribe to Lapham’s Quarterly? I’ll admit that my attention span has gone to shite, so I’m loathe to add one more “ought to” to the ever-growing stack of pulp in this household…
danimal
Looking at the tagline and I can’t figure out Pink Himalayan Salt. Seems to be about other media outlets, but I’m lost beyond that. Please ‘splain.
Corner Stone
@danimal: It has something to do with making fun of Megan McArdle.
I don’t ask anymore, I just skim a little here and there.
mclaren
Successful center-right trolls are successful.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
The American public is starting to hate on Muslims just as much as Bigot Peretz does, so in that sense he’s been quite successful.
Not as successful as Atlas Juggs, mind you, but give the poor guy a break. All he had to work with was one of the most esteemed magazines published in the USA. It brings a tear to my eye when I imagine that some laborer somewhere thinks he deserves a comfortable life when they haven’t stoked nearly as much hatred as Peretz.
Mark S.
@danimal:
It has to do with McMegan being a climber and not doing very well at it.
Eric U.
I think TNR was a lot better when they had sane republicans to publish. The vacuum caused by the demise of the sane republican has made a mish-mash out of the magazine, and I don’t miss it. I subscribed for 20 years until I could no longer abide by Peretz’ racism a couple of years ago.
Warren Terra
@Anne Laurie:
My pulped tree consumption of the written word has dropped off a lot in the last few years, with online sources getting ever better, any number of books piling up, and video options also getting better (Netflix of the best American and British TV shows from over the last decade or three, for example). So I’m usually behind in reading the magazines to which I do subscribe, and reluctant to add another.
More than that, Lapham’s Quarterly is pricy at more than $12 per issue, $50/year. I’d probably give it a try at half that.
burnspbesq
@Cat Lady:
Sorry, but no. Non-profits are every bit as beholden to their contributors as for-profits are to their shareholders and lenders (have you noticed who underwrites PBS?). It still costs money to do publishing, and last I checked there are no money-shitting unicorns in this universe, even though Rahm promised one to every progressive.
burnspbesq
@me:
Woody Allen (I think it was) once proposed that Commentary merge with Dissent, to form Dysentery.
The last good piece of print journalism in this country was the National Sports Daily. It lasted six months before folding.
Steeplejack
@danimal:
From Megan McArdle’s holiday gift guide, December 2009:
Does that get it for you, or do you need a full Barthesian deconstruction?
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
Barthes isn’t up to this job. This needs Derrida.
PeakVT
I subscribed to the full list at one point (Nation, TNR, American Prospect, Atlantic, Harpers, Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, Progressive) but I think the publication I miss the most is the NYRB. Sometimes an issue wouldn’t have a single article that interested me, but other times it would have 4-5 just absolutely great pieces. I should resubscribe at some point, I suppose.
arguingwithsignposts
@burnspbesq:
Also, McClatchey’s D.C. bureau has done some great reporting, as has the WaPo on occasion. Business model isn’t what makes great reporting. Cajones to stand up and take the hit to report the truth – now that’s something sadly lacking in DC.
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: That isn’t the point jackhole.
The news bureau should not be a for profit center. That is the point.
El Tiburon
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I can’t stomach somerby anymore. I appreciate what he does and hope he keeps it up, but meh.
I think there is a reason alterman doesn’t get invited on too many talk shows. It’s his personality natch.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Point taken.
The Republic of Stupidity
I’ve never quite understood the importance too many people attach to Fox viewership numbers.
On their best night, the top-rated Fox ‘news/talking heads’ draw maybe 4 million, or about 1.1% of the population. Those are the cable numbers, I believe, which I have seen righties trumpeting about endlessly.
1.1%????
Didn’t Rush Limbaugh once say something to the effect that ‘who cares what African Americans think… they make up 15% of the population’?
By Rush’s own logic, I guess Fox’s cable numbers are irrelevant.
And seeing as Fox sets themselves apart from the pack by trying to define themselves as THE alternative to ALL OTHER news outlets, their numbers, compared to EVERYONE ELSE’S combined, get even more miniscule, no?
Unless ‘cable ratings’ are the Special Olympics for news…
What I see as the REAL PROBLEM w/ Fox, and this is underhandedly brilliant on Rupert and Ailes’ part, is the way they have EVERYONE else talking about them, and repeating what they say, even if it’s an attempt to discredit it…
Prolly has something to do w/ just how patently absurd and outrageous a lot of the Fox crap is…
‘Cause it STILL gets repeated over and over and over ad nauseum… until a lotta folks prolly can’t get those sound bites outta their head.
Fox has just figured out a clever way to use the entire media apparatus as an unconscious megaphone…
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Dude, wasting your time arguing with ignorant fools like burnspbesq is like entering the Special Olympics: even if you win, you’re still retarded.
danimal
Thanks to all who answered my query. I’m on a low salt and low McMeghan diet, so it’s all good.
Brachiator
@Cat Lady:
People keep offering this as the new conventional wisdom. No one is consistently making this work as a way to create and maintain a news organization. This has certainly never been the primary model for journalism, and yet somehow “real journalism” often got done anyway.
The NPR program Fresh Air ran a series on the possibility of using the non-profit model in 2009. One report noted that Pro Publica was largely dependent on a single wealthy donor, but that this did not seem to be a reliable long term model:
But public broadcasting is probably another dead end. With the Internets and audio and video streaming, there is increasingly less need for a network of public broadcasting entities.
And recently, KCET, the public TV station in the huge Los Angeles market, announced that they were breaking away from PBS. They promised that they would continue relevant programming, but last week they replaced whatever public service programming they used to run with the Tim Burton’s Batman. This is not a good sign. You also have to wonder how PBS is going to replace the dues that used to come from KCET.
Aunt Moe
@c u n d gulag: Eric Alterman really does loathe Peretz. And he (correctly) blames him for ruining TNR, for which Alterman once toiled. He also goes after Peretz on a regular basis for his neo-con’ish’ zionism.
Alterman can be thin skinned, but boy oh boy does he know how to skewer the media. I enjoy his writing a lot.