Crazy Canucks Invade Beltway Journalism
By Hmm, Can West has taken over the New Republic–but, alas, Marty Peretz is keeping his stake. Apparently they’ll be moving to a bi-weekly, twice-the-length format (if this means more space for the book review, frankly it could be an improvement.) Amusingly, Kit Seelye’s article takes at face value claims that the decline in circulation was largely due to voluntary “culling” while not mentioning, say, its full-throated endorsement of a disastrous and unpopular war (especially among its target audience), its endorsement of Joe Liberman’s walking-punchline primary run, etc.
Meanwhile, J-Pod sez:
I can’t think of a publication that has ever altered its publication schedule in this way that has benefited from the change.
Um, didn’t the National Review start as a weekly? Its founder seemed to think so:
The launching of a conservative weekly journal of opinion in a country widely assumed to be a bastion of conservatism at first glance looks like a work of supererogation, rather like publishing a royalist weekly within the walls of Buckingham Palace.
Of course, I suppose you could say he still has a point…
UPDATE: The article I read in the print edition today does discuss the Lieberman endorsement and the war. I’m 99% sure that this was not in the version of the article I read, but if so obviously I retract that criticism.