TAC would have prospered had it given its readers straight talk about race, and laid out that “humbler” approach to foreign affairs that George W. Bush had promised the electorate in 2000.
On Saturday, I learned it is very likely that The American Conservative magazine is shutting down. This is a shame, because:
1. It was the first major conservative magazine since National Review, almost fifty years earlier, that was founded not to curry favor with the powerful, but to criticize them, and seek to change their minds. NR had long since turned largely into a coven of neocon court propagandists. And though TAC’s demise may suggest otherwise, there is a healthy market for a semi-weekly magazine showcasing highbrow conservative intellectual writing and journalism.
2. I had a number of friends and acquaintances there, who are among America’s greatest intellectuals, and who must now seek elsewhere after work; and
3. I never got to sell an article there, and go through the cycle of freelancing for it, enthusiastically supporting it, getting stiffed by the editor, and becoming embittered towards the rag, that I have gone through with so many other media outlets where I lacked (or lost) a “rabbi,” and so was seen by the editor as “of use” for a time, before being tossed aside.
TAC (it calls itself “AMCONMAG,” but that sounds too much like “ECOMCON,” the clandestine military unit poised to take over the country in a coupe d’etat, in the movie Seven Days in May), could have become wildly successful, by the admittedly modest standards of political magazines. It had star-power (editor and writer Pat Buchanan), a few million bucks behind it (courtesy of editor/gossip columnist and Greek shipping and textiles heir, Taki Theodoracopulos), and a stable of brilliant writers.
Millions of Americans, including many white Americans, have been mad as hell for years about what passes for “conservative” journalism and political debate in this country. Their legions variously read, post, and sent letters to hundreds of Web sites such as Free Republic, VDARE, American Renaissance, Liberty Forum, Pipe Bomb News, ALIPAC, and hundreds more blogs.
But no matter how sophisticated paper-free media has become, there’s something special about a magazine. Once upon a time, National Review served this niche, but no more. Chronicles magazine could have served this audience, but it has long been run by classicist Thomas Fleming, who while a brilliant writer and thinker (at least he was prior to the lapse of my subscription in early 2000), is an incompetent and vindictive editor. Under Fleming’s leadership, while I wrote for Chronicles (1992-1999), its readership shrunk from over 20,000 to just over 5,000.
(And abusing editors and stiffing writers is also no way to go through life. In 1999, managing editor Ted Pappas left Chronicles after carrying Fleming for ten years. Rather than publicly thanking Ted for his yeoman-like efforts, Fleming coldly noted in a box that Ted had left Chronicles. No thanks, no nothing. By the way, Fleming still owes yours truly $150, for a 2,200-word, “Letter from New York” on Rudy Giuliani that he commissioned but never ran, never formally killed, and for which he never paid me a kill fee. I managed eventually to chop up the manuscript and sell the scraps, but that has no bearing on Fleming’s obligation to me. As best I could figure, Fleming’s stiffing of me just after Ted gave notice was some perverse form of revenge by proxy, sort of like stories I’ve heard of one tenured academic slugging a rival’s student. I guess Ted Pappas was my “rabbi” at Chronicles. You'd think an editor would realize just how vindictive writers can be.)
Middle American News, which is largely devoted to immigration reform but has published some work on race, has over 100,000 readers, but has never had the financial backing necessary to make a big splash.
American Renaissance has ably exploited the Internet, with a Web site that is read daily by tens of thousands of conservatives unhappy with the GOP. It is also read by conservative writers who would never admit to perusing it, and yet many of the articles they discuss or link to, clearly came from AR’s invaluable daily roundup. However, AR’s strength is also its weakness: It is about race, period. It is also not, to my knowledge, lavishly funded.
TAC would have prospered, had it given its readers straight talk about race, and laid out that “humbler” approach to foreign affairs that George W. Bush had promised the electorate in 2000, and which was characteristic of the Old Right, whose spirit TAC sought to evoke. An isolationist or neo-isolationist approach would have been respected, had it been intelligently argued.
Instead, TAC caved in on race, without even putting up a fight, and its foreign affairs position, rather than intelligent isolationism or neo-isolationism, often amounted to little more than “Die Juden, er, Neocons, sind unser Unglueck!”
The attacks on the, ahem, neocons, were to give the editors the illusion that they were fearless. Straight talk on race would have replaced such illusions with the reality of courage.
And what, then, is the legacy of the less than four-year run of TAC? That is impossible to say, at present. Its friends and enemies will seek to spin its demise this way and that, but the magazine’s true legacy will reside in what its most talented writers go on to do, including whether they manage to found another conservative magazine, and if so, whether they avoid repeating the mistakes they made this time around, or give in even more to paranoid obsessions with Jews, and cowardice on race.
On Monday morning, I called TAC, to get a comment. A staffer, Daniel McCarthy, said “O.k., one moment,” and went to confer with his bosses. He then came back and told me, “I’m sorry, there’s no one here who can help you at the moment."
I opined that I would think that his bosses would want to comment on such an important story. McCarthy replied, cooly, "Well, thanks for calling.”
7/19 Update: Another source at TAC tells me that the magazine's fate is not yet sealed, though it hangs in the balance. Staffers are getting mixed messages, and some believe the powers that be are hustling after new “angels” (my word, not theirs; “angels” is Broadway slang for backers). Should such angels arrive bearing gold, their character will likely determine whether TAC continues along the editorial path it has so far trod, turns in a direction such as that which I have suggested for it, or goes yet a third way. However, yet another reliable source expects the magazine to fold in the fall, at the latest.
You don’t really get to the reason why AmConMag is shutting down. Was it low subscribtions? How does it compare with the numbers from other magazines you mentioned?
I agree with obi juan that you never got to the point, or was the point to vent your dislike of NR and the NeoCons. I can remember when the supporters of Barry Goldwater were called the NeoCons. Why title an article one thing and then write another thing?
Obi juan, there is only one reason why a magazine shuts down: It is out of money. Magazine revenues come from three sources: magazine sales (via subscriptions and news stands) , advertising sales, and backers.
I give you the biggest scoop in conservative media in years, and you’re claiming I didn’t really give you a scoop. You’re a Freeper, right?
As for Bytemaster, I’d suggest literacy volunteers for you, but you wouldn’t understand that, either.
With this as example of your finished work, it's no wonder you were stiffed and written off as inconsequential.
The American Conservative apparently doesn’t have the big financial backer that The Weekly Standard does. Rupert Murdock subsidizes The Weekly Standard enormously; it certainly is a big money loser in its own right and couldn’t be published without Murdock’s money bags. All political magazines are money losers. Only backers like Murdock keep them in print. Political magazines require a lot of money for the printing of the actual magazine, office space, telephones, computers, mail list maintenance, mailing services, the all important postage and salaries, which are usually rather small.
If the American Conservative closes, it will be a huge victory for neo-conservatism and big government conservatism. I am sure Bill Kristol, David Brooks, David Frum and Fred Barnes will be happy.
You are correct about the money and Rupert Murdoch’s role, Mr. Leaberry. My sources say that Murdoch subsidizes the Weekly Standard to the tune of $3 million per annum, a princely sum for a political magazine, though it is nothing compared to what S.I. Newhouse and Harvey Weinstein shoveled into various Tina Brown productions. Conversely, according to a source close to things, Taki Theodoracopulos has subsidized TAC to the tune of $3 million total, which if true would amount to a relatively paltry $750,000 per year.
While you are correct that the failure of TAC would signal “a huge victory for neo-conservatism,” had TAC been less obsessed with neocons and more concerned with staking out its own claims, the neocons might not now have grounds for celebration.
If a truly conservative magazine is to survive without a Murdoch-style sugar daddy, it might well have to forsake the paper route altogether, and “Go Web, young man!”
Granted, that would be less aesthetically satisfying than a traditional, paper magazine, but surviving and thriving provide their own aesthetic pleasures.
To the knucklescrapers who posted here prior to Mr. Leaberry: I did a search last night and confirmed my initial hunch that you are, indeed, Freepers and (given all of Jim Robinson’s purges) Free Republic lurkers. A little word to the not-so-wise: Intellectual Conservative is not Free Republic! You will not succeed at freeping this site with your moronic insults. Now crawl back to your pathetic bunker.
Are you that fickle Mr. Stix, that you cannot take criticism?
What was that, Kim? Have I beaten my wife lately?
A few quick comments are in order.
1) I have read Mr. Stix in several publications and respect his writing. I also am a subscriber to Chronicles and respect Tom Fleming’s writings. I have subscribed since about 1989 and, to my recollection, subscriptions were at about 9000 at the time and have dwindled to 6000. All political magazines that are new (or fundamentally altered as Chronicles was) tend to lose many of their initial subscribers due to the finding out that the magazine wasn’t their cup of tea. Chronicles seems to have steadied at 6000 subscibers which is disappointing and colors Fleming’s editorship negatively. However, Chronicles’ saving grace is that it is much more for an academic crowd than the Republican Rah-Rah National Review or the Neo-Conservative Weekly Standard.
I have been bothered over the years by Fleming’s ability to lose friends and allies. Mr. Stix has written about being ill-used by Fleming and I have no reason to doubt Mr. Stix. Ted Pappas’ swift departure from Chronicles with next to no acknowledgement was surprising as was the short-lived career of Matthew Rarey (former Washington Times reporter) at Chronicles. Even the late Sam Francis often didn’t get along well at times with Fleming.
2) Perhaps The American Conservative could become a monthly rather than a bi-weekly. This change would save on printing and postage costs by about half. These are most magazine’s largest expense.
3) As a young journalist over twenty years ago under the employ of John McLaughlin (then National Review’s Washington correspondent), I learned that much of the big money earned by the big-time journalists is through personal engagements. I was surprised how little Pat Buchanan, Morton Kondracke, Robert Novak and Jack Germond made at the time for the McLaughlin Group. However, Dr. McLaughlin made $3000-$4000 a pop for engagements (such as Association yearly meetins at places like Boca Raton, which was a favorite venue for Dr. McLaughlin) and I must think that the other panelists made similar money. The McLaughlin Group often went on the road together for very good fees.
4) Like Mr. Stix, I have little respect for the average poster at Free Republic. Honesty forces me to admit to being purged by Robinson and having such computer skills to not be able to evade Robinson’s busy censors. I find most of the posters at Free Republic to be very immature and most are some sort of computer geek. The way that the boney Miss Coulter is some sort of Free Republic poster babe is laughable. As one who prints out some of the Free Republic commentary, I am struck not only by the immaturity of many of the posters but the lack of historical knowledge of the majority of Free Republic posters. Although Free Republic is not without virtue as conservatives get to read a wide array of news stories and commentaries, Mr. Robinson and his moderators are as childish as the average poster at Free Republic.
To answer obi juan, The American Conservative has about 18,000 subscribers. This compares to about 60,000 for the Weekly Standard and 130,000 for National Review, which in my humble opinion has been declined in intellectual vigor for at least a decade. It is more or less an appendage to the Republican Party these days. Maybe that is why it has the most subscribers of any of the major “conservative” publications. It lost me as a subscriber when it reverse policy of long standing and announced that the Southern Cause in Lincoln’s War was a bad cause. Them’s fightin’ words!
With Pat Buchannan commentaries like this:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51116
it’s no wonder that Amconmag is on the ropes. What a bunch of trash!
NR lost me after the “Unpatriotic Conservatives” article by Frum. I still view NRO to read Derbyshire though.
If AmConMag is in trouble, doesn’t that mean that Taki is no longer subsidizing it? Is that what your source told you Nicholas? When AmConMag first came out I remember the paper quality not being all that great. No glossy cover or anything. If they have to revert to that, up the subscription price, and only come out monthly, I’d still subscribe.
You’d think that with all his wealth, which I thought was through
inheritance of the family shipping business, Taki would be able to
match Rupert Murdock in subsidizing a magazine that conformed to
his worldview. Pat Buchanan, who actually does little in running The
American Conservative, is fairly wealthy himself and without immediate
heirs. You’d think he’d want to keep the magazine afloat as part of his
legacy now that he is getting up in years.
It is a shame to hear about this. TAC (I agree with you about how AMCONMAG sounds) was the only rag that criticized the Conservative Establishment that wasn’t also a banner for the left.
What I find most disturbing, though, is to hear about the number of Weekly Standard subscribers (thanks, Mr. Leaberry). That’s just…..seriously, Conservative America, you can do better than that.
May I suggest The New Oxford Review (available on-line and as a monthly) as a publication that is critical of the Neo-Cons and still solidly conservative. It's a Catholic/High Anglican publication that has the courage to criticize even Benedict XVI-from the RIGHT! I don't agree with everything they say but the smells and bells of their valor and integrity does nothing but lift the spirit. Ann Coulter is the best known of a whole bunch of folks who while deferential to the angels, don't mind sticking fiery pokers in the eyes of the various demons who cross our paths. Free Republic should always be appreciated for it's chivalrous work during The Clinton Tyranny. I put Free Republic right there with Drudge, Rush, Joseph Farah's World Net Daily, Newsmax, Human Events, and The Jewish World Review as places that allow for sites such as this one to exist at all. Murdoch is not an idealogue but instead a businessman. There's a market for truth and balance out there. The Left can't understand such concepts having Stalin and Mao as their intellectual fathers. "..Shall we stop them for they are preaching but are not of our group?…Do nothing of the same! For if they are not against us, they are for us…" Excuse the paraphrase, but wisdom nonetheless.
Mr. Stix, publicly airing your dirty laundry with Chronicles and Dr. Fleming is a bit unseemly. I suspect if you contacted him you would get an explanation.
I think for a while Chronicles (and the Rockford Institute for that matter) was viewed as a paleo alternative to the neos but still a part of the “mainstream” conservative movement. As it became more apparent that they were not lock step Republicans, the mainstream movement left them. Chronicles is consistently the best conservative magazine out there. They have fewer subscribers because they are not mindless GOP lapdogs.
The mainstream neoconservative magazines and newspapers receive a ton of corporate funding.
These neoconservative outlets are: WSJ, Fox News, National Review, Weekly Standard, American Spectator, Forbes, Fortune, American Enterprise, and dozens of others.
They all receive funding from places like: Rupert Murdoch, Halliburton, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Howard Pew Trust, Shell, Texaco, Motorola, GE, and dozens of other sources.
They also all tend to support a neoconservative vision of foreign policy: a liberal interventionist Wilsonian policy of converting the world to liberal democracy, which, by the way, is not a very conservative position.
While traditional conservative publications (American Conservative, Chronicles, VDare) may not receive as much or really any corporate funding, they are still a breath of fresh air because they are not just simply regurgitating GOP talking points.
When Murdoch dies, will the Weekly Standard wither away. Murdoch’s heirs will most likely fight over the Murdoch Empire and not really care to finance an institution like the Weekly Standard to carry the Murdoch flame. Murdoch’s heirs might not even share Murdoch’s political point-of-view.
#17
“Mr. Stix, publicly airing your dirty laundry with Chronicles and Dr. Fleming is a bit unseemly. I suspect if you contacted him you would get an explanation.”
Mr. Philips, I did contact Fleming at the time. He ignored me.
Unseemly? Not at all. Cheating a freelance writer who put 150 HOURS into a job for you, now that’s unseemly. Publicly humiliating a crooked employer provides a small measure of revenge. Were Chronicles Fleming a New York editor, I could have sued him, publicly humiliated him, and gotten the money out of him that he owed me.
Were I truly unseemly, I would have recounted any number of unflattering Tom Fleming stories that are old hat for anyone who has been close to Chronicles or The League of the South. But I’m not interested in taking unseemly cheap shots at the man.
Are you sure you’re a conservative? Because you don’t seem to know the difference between right and wrong.
“I think for a while Chronicles (and the Rockford Institute for that matter) was viewed as a paleo alternative to the neos but still a part of the “mainstream” conservative movement. As it became more apparent that they were not lock step Republicans, the mainstream movement left them. Chronicles is consistently the best conservative magazine out there. They have fewer subscribers because they are not mindless GOP lapdogs.
“Comment by Red Phillips | July 26, 2006″
According to your logic, when the magazine had over 20,000 subscribers in the early 1990s, it was a “mindless GOP lapdog.”
Nicholas,
I think that Thomas Fleming is one of the smartest conservative commentators out there. Most of what he has to say is very interesting and thoughtful – not just some GOP talking point like you get from Buckley, Limbaugh, and others.