The Nation

This article is about the U.S publication. For other newspapers, magazines, and alternate uses by the same name, see The Nation (disambiguation).

The Nation (ISSN 0027-8378) is a U.S. periodical devoted to politics and culture, self-described as "the flagship of the left." Publisher's description on Amazon.com page about The Nation. Accessed 27 June 2006. The magazine is published weekly, except for the second week in January, and biweekly the third week of July through the second week of September. Founded on July 6, 1865 as a classical liberal publication, it is one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the United States. It is published by the Nation Company, L.P. at 33 Irving Place, New York City. The Nation has bureaus in Budapest, London, and Southern Africa and departments covering Architecture, Art, Corporations, Defense, Environment, Films, Legal Affairs, Music, Peace and Disarmament, Poetry, and the United Nations. The circulation of The Nation is rising and was last placed at 184,296 (2004), surpassing the neoliberal The New Republic, the neoconservative The Weekly Standard, and the conservative National Review (circulation 155,584). The Nation magazine has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained by a group of over 25,000 donors called the Nation Associates who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees.

The publisher and editor of The Nation is Katrina vanden Heuvel. Former editors include Victor Navasky, Norman Thomas (associate editor), Carey McWilliams, and Freda Kirchwey. Notable contributors to The Nation have included Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gore Vidal, Hunter S. Thompson, Ralph Nader, James Baldwin, Daniel Singer, I.F. Stone, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Regular columns

"Beat the Devil" by Alexander Cockburn
"The Liberal Media" by Eric Alterman
"Diary of a Mad Law Professor" by Patricia J. Williams
"Subject to Debate" by Katha Pollitt
"Look Out" by Naomi Klein
"Deadline Poet" by Calvin Trillin
The Nation cryptic crossword by Frank W. Lewis

Christopher Hitchens wrote the column "Minority Report" for twenty years; he resigned in 2003 over the magazine's ongoing anti-war position in relation to the Iraq war and War on Terror.

Notable recent events

The Nation Washington Editor, David Corn broke the Valerie Plame leak scandal in the summer of 2003 in the pages of The Nation after noting that journalist Robert Novak's blowing of the spy's cover in a newspaper column could be a possible felony.

In a widely publicized and vocal break with the magazine, former columnist Christopher Hitchens left The Nation when it published a large number of letters from readers, who, Hitchens claimed, blamed America for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In 1997, MacArthur Foundation money was contributed to the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting through a MacArthur "genius grant" program, which was then headed by Catharine Stimpson, a member of The Nation magazine's Nation Institute Board.

In March 2005, the publication's United Nations correspondent, Ian Williams, was the subject of adverse publicity for accepting money from the UN while covering it for The Nation. Fox News Channel, Accuracy in Media and FrontPage Magazine criticized Williams and the publication. He and The Nation denied wrongdoing. Alyssa A. Lappen, Another U.N. Scandal, FrontPageMagazine.com March 16, 2005. Accessed 27 June 2006.
Cliff Kincaid, Journalists Exposed on the U.N. Payroll; George Soros, Ted Turner Pay for Journalism Prizes, Accuracy in Media, February 15, 2005. Accessed 27 June 2006.
U.N. Reporters Group May Have Violated U.S. Immigration Law, Accuracy in Media press release, February 22, 2005. Accessed 27 June 2006.

In its November 28, 2005 issue, The Nation issued an endorsement policy for political candidates that stated that they would only endorse candidates who oppose the war in Iraq.

History

Abolitionists founded The Nation in July 1865 on "Newspaper Row" at 130 Nassau Street in Manhattan. At the time, Joseph H. Richards was the publisher and E.L. Godkin, a classical liberal critic of nationalism, imperialism, and socialism Edwin L. Godkin, The Eclipse of Liberalism, The Nation, August 9, 1900. Reproduced on the site of the Molinari Institute, accessed 27 June 2006., was the editor. The magazine would stay at Newspaper Row for the next ninety years. Wendell Phillips Garrison, son of William Lloyd Garrison, was literary editor of the periodical from 1865 to 1906.

In 1881, newspaperman-turned-railroad-baron Henry Villard acquired The Nation and converted it into a weekly literary supplement for his daily newspaper the New York Evening Post. The offices of the magazine were moved to the Evening Post's headquarters at 210 Broadway. The New York Evening Post would later morph into a tabloid: the New York Post was a left-leaning afternoon tabloid under owner Dorothy Schiff from 1939 to 1976, and has been a conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch since that time, while The Nation became known for its left-liberal politics.

In 1918, Henry's Villard's son, Oswald Garrison Villard, took over as editor of the magazine and sold the Evening Post. He remade The Nation into a current affairs publication and gave it a liberal orientation.

New Nation publisher Hamilton Fish and then-editor Victor Navasky moved the weekly to 72 Fifth Avenue in June 1979. In June 1998, the periodical had to move to make way for condominium development. The offices of The Nation are now at 33 Irving Place.

Mission

According to The Nation's founding prospectus of 1865, "The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred, our own exaggerations and misrepresentations notwithstanding."

Editorial Board

Norman Birnbaum, Richard Falk, Frances FitzGerald, Eric Foner, Philip Green, Lani Guinier, Tom Hayden, Randall Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Elinor Langer, Deborah Meier, Toni Morrison, Victor Navasky, Richard Parker, Michael Pertschuk, Elizabeth Pochoda, Marcus G. Raskin, David Weir, and Roger Wilkins.

Notes

External links

1865 establishments | Political magazines | United States magazines

The Nation (USA)