Thursday, March 28, 2024
 
Writer’s Gossipy Report on Meltdown at New Republic Omits Obvious Reference

WASHINGTON, D.C. Dec. 15 (DPI) – The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza this weekend served up a gossipy insider’s take on the recent meltdown at The New Republic, where the owner planned to let go of its respected editor, triggering a wave of staff resignations that left the magazine unable to publish.

Lizza, White House correspondent for The New Yorker and previously a writer at TNR, properly disclosed all his friendships at and history with the august DC-based magazine, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. The New Republic has long prided itself as a serious public-policy magazine for the left-leaning intelligentsia.

But its reputation was seriously damaged by the Stephen Glass Affair in 1998, in which a young star journalist was discovered to have fabricated many of his articles. That episode, which even inspired a movie, raised serious doubts about the magazine’s overall credibility – not to mention its basic fact-checking ability.  TNR has muddled along, though, continuing to sing from a liberal Democratic songbook with a small, loyal congregation of readers – and continuing too as an unprofitable ward of generous owners and benefactors.

In his article this weekend, Lizza delicately skewered the young owner, 31-year-old Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who purchased the publication two years ago, as well as Guy Vidra, a Yahoo executive Hughes brought in in October to run the publication.   Among other tidbits, Lizza reports that Amazon cancelled an advertising campaign following a cover article on the Amazon-Hachette business dispute. He tells too of a series of meetings in which Vidra presents to the publication’s staff of plans to re-define itself for the digital age, move to New York City and generally look for new ways to make the publication profitable.

The article suggests too that Hughes, alleged to be worth about half a billion dollars, was already tiring of the chronic flow of red ink. And, Lizza suggests neither Hughes nor Vidra showed a high regard for long-form or investigative journalism, as both told staffers they wanted TNR articles that “travel well” – that is, be widely circulated online and generally attract wider attention. (Hardly an unworthy objective, by the way, and certainly not in conflict with day-to-day journalism.)

The two Silicon Valley executives then quietly sought out a replacement for Franklin Foer, the longtime editor of TNR. Foer, learning he was about to be replaced, resigned, and two-thirds of the paid staff followed. The pending edition was cancelled, and the next print edition is not expected until February.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-collapse-new-republic

But one person Lizza never mentioned in his report – who would have fit right into the new culture Hughes and Vidra were seeking to develop – was Glass himself. It was a noticeable, even glaring, omission: Glass’s imaginative articles, if nothing else, “traveled well.”

In a separate article in November – published as part of the magazine’s 100th anniversary – a longtime TNR writer reports that Glass is living quietly with his girlfriend in Venice Beach, CA.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120145/stephen-glass-new-republic-scandal-still-haunts-his-law-career 

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