TNR's New Owners

On February 23, the 93-year-old New Republic announced it would shift from weekly to biweekly publication and that CanWest--Canada's largest media conglomerate--would henceforth own a majority share and would expect the magazine to turn a profit.

Reaction was swift. Commentators, well-wishers and ill-wishers alike focused on the watershed moment of America's second-oldest weekly going biweekly. The Internet, the argument goes, has changed the game; what role, if any, venerable print institutions like The New Republic will play in the future is an open question. The magazine assured readers it has a plan; the glossy new biweekly will be twice the size of the old weekly, and the website will be enhanced to keep the magazine in the daily news cycle.

While the new strategy may make business sense, its new ownership structure raises critical questions for the public sphere, questions that grew more acute when CanWest announced just four days later that it was instead buying the whole magazine. Independence has long been an important condition for journals of opinion dedicated to making a contribution to the national dialogue. It's no accident that of the four main such US journals, three (The Nation, National Review and TNR) were independently owned; only the late comer, Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, is not--and so far he's allowed the magazine to run at a loss.

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