http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Lingering_Death_Of_The_New_Republic
Tout les Twittersphere went izonkospheric when it was announced that Chris Hughes, the Silicon Valley bozillionnaire who bought The New Republic in order to let his dog play with it out in the backyard, had a parting of the ways with his editor, and his literary editor, because Hughes apparently plans to move TNR, as it is adorably referred to by its many acolytes, to New York and turn it into a clickbait machine with upcoming features like "The Ten Hottest Secretaries Of Agriculture." . . . .As someone who once worked for a paper that folded beneath him, I feel for the people at the magazine who are going to lose their jobs behind this move. And, as someone who suddenly lost the publication at which he learned all his chops, I feel for Jonathan Chait. But, institutionally, the slow destruction of TNR by its new and witless owner doesn't come up for me to the slow and deliberate destruction of its credibility as a legitimate liberal voice during the ownership of the execrable Marty Peretz.
John Cole has helpfully provided a brief list of the atrocities committed by the magazine under Peretz's leadership . .. The New Republic became the index patient for a lot of terrible stuff that happened to progressivism over the past 30 years.
.. . . .
So, no, contra Chait, and even though the magazine unquestionably has regained a lot of its lost quality, especially in its actual reporting, I think the notion that The New Republic is "an essential foundation of American progressive thought" is a ship that sailed a long time ago. Everybody I know who wrote for him thought Frank Foer was a terrific editor, and I'm sure he'll land somewhere, as will the enormously gifted writers he seems to have nurtured, if they choose not to play in Hughes's sandbox. (There cannot be a 2016 presidential campaign without Alec MacGillis. I simply won't allow it.) I am as sure of that as I am that Chris Hughes is going to make a complete hash of the magazine he bought as a chew toy. At least this form of malpractice will be less likely to kill people in distant lands. I guess there's that.
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