At least they are trying to put on a happy face. Behold! A New Magazine At NR, we take changes to the print magazine seriously.... So this is a big one for us: NR is going monthly as of November. Or in other words, Behold! We can't pay our staff as our subscribers have dropped us like flies! It's with more than trace of irony that I notice the slow motion decline of National Review. The ironic part is that NR is suffering from O'Sullivan's Law: "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing." And sometimes even left wing ones. So the irony again? John O'Sullivan was one of it's writers that it fired in order to bring the magazine into the current year. I guess it worked.
Sad to see this, and did not realize the situation had gotten this bad. NR was the most intellectual conservative magazine and probably the only good quality one left. So what is left? The only serious remaining alternatives almost seem like Tabloids in quality. And why do conservatives seem to be so utterly incompetent when it comes to any form of media? There are supporters and money, but no organization. Numerous attempts to change the landscape seem to have very limited funding, or are hopelessly small scale, or lack competent leadership. I have one theory that the type of individuals attracted to a career in journalism just overall tend to be very politically progressive leaning people. And maybe small scale conservative media gets nipped in the bud, sort of blacklisted, before it has any opportunity to grow organically like a normal company. Most smaller media companies began their life piggybacking off distribution from another major established media company.
I would put the decline directly on the tenure of Rich Lowery as editor in chief. During his tenure, he got rid of a lot of writers I liked. Particularly, Mark Steyn. Also he began "the conservative case for..." journalism, in which the magazine made "the conservative case" for every kind of leftist nonsense. The anyone but Trump issue kind of put the cap on it and it's been in a death spiral ever sense. These type of magazines never make a profit; they depend on the generosity of rich donors. There are fewer of them who want to support this.
So I guess the real question is how low does it have to spiral downhill before they are forced to sell, and a new wealthy donor can oust the chief editor?
I think the fact they are having to convert to monthly means we're in that territory already. Tucker should get some investors and buy it.
The went to crap after Buckley quit editing it. Just another shrill right wing tabloid after that, with no class and no objectivity. I'm surprised it lasted this long. The modern right wing rags don't have any higher ethical and intellectual standards than their left wing school buddies do. At least Reason is still consistent in its pandering to bourgeois burb brat fantasies and faux 'rationalism', kind of a Mad Magazine for anarchists with high self-esteem.
Seems to me that they became more moderate, which I like, and what I like tends to be what Trump supporters dislike. There seems to be little to no room for the moderate conservative perspective in conservative media anymore. Makes me sad really. Can anyone perhaps recommend a good moderate conservative news media outlet?
Not sure how to define it. The individuals I tend to see as moderate value bipartisan cooperation over political polarization. A person could fit this description yet still be quite conservative or liberal. The key identifier for me is loyalty to country rather than to a political party or politician. Too often loyalty to politicians and/or political party is conflated into loyalty to country. Too many confuse authoritarianism with democracy.
