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Facebook Founder Presents Vision For The New Republic, Many Resign In Protest
SkiTee94 writes: Chris Hughes, one of the original founders of Facebook, is in damage control mode to save his recently acquired, century-old publication The New Republic. In response to Hughes' vision to turn the highly respected, and most would say old school, publication into a "digital media company," about a dozen senior editors and writers simply quit (out of a 54-person staff). One of the editors who quit said, "The narrative that they are putting out there is that it is the 21st century and we have to innovate and adapt. ... We don’t know what their vision is. It is Silicon Valley mumbo jumbo buzzwords that don’t mean anything." Is Hughes a visionary cleaning out dead wood or a clueless tech star leaving destruction in his wake?
From about 1975 forward TNR was in the vanguard of "neoliberalism", which basically amounts to packaging hard right Republican ideas + hippie punching and selling in to "moderate" Democratic politicians and DC insiders who think they need to "move right" to get re-elected. Classifying TNR (cf Andrew Sullivan) as a 'liberal rag' is a bit, oh, silly.
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The report I read elsewhere suggested that it was, at least in part, a reaction to the new owner sacking the editor.
You don't have a single left wing outlet in the US. Even the most left leaning is way into the political right everywhere else on the planet. You've got so used to extreme right as central, you cannot see you're a fascist state.
The open letter from the long-time editors who quit says:
> It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalismâ(TM)s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon.
The very people who make the magazine are very clear that their intention has been that it is "liberalism's central journal". Elsewhere you'll see they honestly and clearly state their intention to promote left-wing liberalism. They aren't pretending to be objective, balanced, or factual.
Until Hughes bought it, for the previous few decades it had been controlled by Marty Peretz, and was to some extent reflective of his views, which are an odd idiosyncratic mix of left-wing and right-wing ideas. He's socially liberal but a defense hawk, among other positions. Which explains why TNR was liberal on things like gay marriage, but neoconservative on things like the Iraq War.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm sorry, but the only difference between a liberal and a totalitarian is that the liberal says, "You are free to do whatever you want, as long as what you want is what I think you should want."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Your center detector needs re-calibration (travel anywhere in the world outside the US)
Yes, the US, once the last, best hope for freedom and liberty, is moving further to the left where all the countries that have already lost are now positioned. Central Banks (rah rah), central control (yippee ECB), and soul-crushing austerity rules while the ECB spends 1.6 Billion Euros (that's Billion with a "B") on its luxurious building, built for kings. Of course, they are the new kings and priests all rolled into one, while the obedient zombies of Europe cheer on their own enslavement.
That's great - let's bring it to the US. It's working very well. The only thing stopping Agenda 21 from wresting control of all property from the US citizens and handing it to the elitists are those that know enough history to recognize the New World Order being promoted by HW Bush and Obama is no different from the serfdom and slavery of the old world that founding of the US tried to avoid in the New World. Old habits die hard, though, and the descendents of the old dictators want their Divine Right of Kings back, but with a new name now because they have created new gods to replace the old, and those gods demand sacrifice from the people. And glory for the New Priests.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Re. buzzwords, I'm guessing the editor is referring to a quote from the new CEO, Guy Vidra:
Mr. Vidra said in a memo to the staff on Thursday that he wanted to reimagine the publication “as a vertically integrated digital media company.”
Vidra also wrote,
As we restructure The New Republic, we will be making significant investments in creating a more effective and efficient newsroom as well as improved products across all platforms. This will require a recalibration of our resources in order to deliver the best product possible. In order to do so, we’ve made the decision to reduce the frequency of our print publication from 20 to 10 issues a year and will be making improvements to the magazine itself.
Given the frequency reduction, we will also be making some changes to staff structure.
That probably didn't go over too well, either.