I could be a member of the elite: I have the requisite certifications, apart from a doctorate. I could be on the correct committees. However, I prefer to have a spine. I find the elite bubble too small, to restrictive, and the recent concern about the New Republic (circulation 50 000) makes this blogger (circulation 4000 a month[1]) a little suspicious.

If I want culture, and I do, I tend to listen to the Concert Programme (on the radio, not via the internet) or search by composer on spotify. If I want reviews, I read the spectator.

If you follow a journalist on Twitter or subscribe to any of the nation’s more progressive periodicals in your RSS feed, you might be inclined to believe there was no other news of note besides a maelstrom of change at The New Republic and the subsequent resignation en masse of most of the editors on the iconic liberal policy and cultural magazine’s masthead.

For days, the talk of the journalism with a capital J circles and the Washington and New York twitterati has been laser-focused on the implications of upheaval at this century-old institution, owned since 2012 by gay Facebook wunderkind Chris Hughes, who is now the target of much criticism. And he is hitting back.

On Thursday, two top editors were either pushed out or resigned, and the magazine ‘s CEO, Guy Vidra, subsequently announced that the December issue now in the works for next week would be shelved and that only 10 issues would be published a year instead of 20. In addition, the magazine announced plans to move from Washington, D.C., to New York City.

But this small thing is spinning people out. They do not understand the economics of magazines: they sell eyeballs to advertisers. The subscription only system only works for samizdata, scholarly journals (and there id does not work that well) and among the true believers. And if the New Republic becomes some SJW house journal it will die.

Having recently read Martin van Creveld’s The Land of Blood and Honey, I suspect there will be some fairly serious cultural clashes in the future between American Jews, who believe they are the center of the Jewish world, and the Israelis, who understandably feel very differently. Those who see “Israeli” and “Jew” as being entirely synonymous really don’t know what they’re talking about; the amusing thing is that Israelis tend to speak more dismissively of American Jews than most Americans would dare.

One important difference that I see is that Israelis are heading rapidly towards a homogenous ethno-cultural state, while American Jews are terrified of Israeli people’s “heartbreaking” embrace of nationalism because they know they are no more a part of the American ethno-cultural state than Israel’s Arab citizens are part of Israel’s, and they have no more desire to move to Israel than the average Israeli Arab has in moving to Egypt or Syria.

Baghdad, Iraq, 1965 pic.twitter.com/9IMeZRdQgi

— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) December 8, 2014

What happens next, after the move to the West coast, is (if the Free Republic follows Ms Magazine, as it seems to be doing) is that the frequency of publication will, again, reduce

In 1998, Gloria Steinem and other investors created Liberty Media (not the cable/satellite conglomerate of the same name) and brought the magazine under independent ownership. It remained ad-free and won several awards, including an Utne award for social commentary. With Liberty Media facing bankruptcy in November 2001, the Feminist Majority Foundation purchased the magazine, dismissed Gillespie and staff, and moved editorial headquarters from New York to Los Angeles. Formerly bimonthly, the magazine has since published quarterly.

In the Spring 2002 issue commemorating the magazine’s 30th year, Gloria Steinem and Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal noted the magazine’s increased ability to “share research and resources, expand investigative journalism, and bring its readers the personal experience that has always been the source of the women’s health movement.”

SImply put, the liberal magazine model — the generalist magazine — is almost dead. There are exceptions:L the two most successful are the Economist and the Spectator. Both have literate writers. Both are not politically correct. And both have target audiences; businessmen for one, literate traditionalists for the other. However, of the tow, I prefer the Spectator. Any magazine that will hire the people who actively oppose them and give them columns (to provide intelligence about the enemy) has still got a place in this world.

But the magazines or organs of the Social Justice Warriros are of less relevance thanthan Pravda [2].

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1. And just past 2000 posts.
2. I have a proof reader called Will S. He found a series of typos: the wordpress spellchecker missed it, as did I.