Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes Is Buying 'The New Republic'
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There's a track record in publishing, where new money has an itch they want to scratch in old media. The last decade, this has happened in magazines and newspapers a few prominent times. Someone gets rich, they decide they want to be a publisher, and they follow their heart in regards to high quality journalism, and spout all sorts of great sounding bytes on how important x y z is.
The new money rarely realizes just how hard it is to stay afloat in the world of magazines and newspapers.
Then reality hits, and the crushing difficulty of running a magazine becomes apparent. Unfortunately, what's most likely to happen is Chris will take at least a moderate financial loss on the purchase. And he may very well not mind, that's understood.
Thus far, Mr. Hughes has given the world Facebook and a huge presidential media campaign. I have limited hope that he'll turn TNR into a quality product with that track record.
Lets get some NPR positioning here - reporting doesn't require equal commenting when the truth is stacked for one side.
It would make him a magazine owner. One can tell a lot about a publisher by who they keep and who they let go when they take over a publication.
There's probably a place for both forms of information in our world. (And it'd be nice to see the long-form media not trying to bastardize themselves to compete with short-form; that's always seemed like a losing game to me). And, frankly, a bimodal world containing short-form, timely content on one end, and long-form, thoughtful analysis on the other, would be a nice change of pace from the muddy middle of clickbait, content farms, quasi-spam, and endless recombinations thereof.
Now, say what you will about the New Republic as the particular choice. I think that's a lot more debatable. But the business idea is intriguing.
My hypothesis is that the magazines that are failing are the ones who fall into the muddy middle-ground between short-form and long-form. They can't compete with the internet on timeliness, and they can't compete with long-form magazines and journals on substance.
It's also interesting to note that the magazine articles most frequently linked on social media, or even here, seem to come from long-form mags. Of course, monetizing that quality is a challenge in its own right, and presumably you'd need a plan to achieve it before buying a magazine.
[1]I may be wrong here, and if so, I'm happy to stand corrected.
'He sees The New Republic as a place "of liberal values. And by that I mean values that embrace the core American ideals of freedom, equality and an American responsibility to make the world a better place."'
There are strong echoes of Citizen Kane. I wonder how long his 'Declaration of Principles' will last.
If he had a sense of decency, he'd at least get rid of Peretz.
"But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."
Peretz is a secular Zionist and passionate advocate for Israel's right to defend itself who at the same time strongly opposes Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.
This combination of views is increasingly rare and that's a real shame, because without prominent people advocating them, defending Israel and defending the settlers are going to reflexively come together as a package.
One can defend Israel without resorting to barbarism. Peretz appears to have a difficult time doing so.
My overall point is if Mr. Hughes wants to engender good vibes about his new purchase, perhaps he should get rid of its biggest bad vibe generator.
But are you sure the 'bad vibes' around Peretz are due solely to his racism? I figured he'd run TNR into the ground, and I knew he was disliked, but I figured it was solely because the audience for left-wing domestic policy + right-wing foreign policy has been steadily evaporating. I suspected most of his audience had picked a 'side' and jumped for The Nation or something like Commentary, depending on their preferences.
In any case, I have to admit I don't see TNR's reason for being post-Peretz. It'll be interesting to see what Hughes does with it.
I'm unsure. But it certainly can't help. Peretz was condemned by Harvard's undergrads back in 2010.