The New Republic changed a lot in the past year, under its new ownership by Chris Hughes, one of Facebook's Mega-Rich. The online format is hot. And I enjoy the articles. I used to rarely read the New Republic, even though we have a print subscription. Steve was the primary reader. But now, thanks to its redesign and twitter friendly topics, I check out an article or two per day. I made a mental note last week to start sending them pitches for articles.
Over the weekend, there was a scuffle about its new direction. They fired a long time writer, who wasn't too pleased. Reason has more about the direction of the magazine under Hughes.
Apt. 11d 
I didn’t know about the firing of Timothy Noah, who was one of my favorite writers on their masthead. As for the long Reason piece, it covers some interesting ground, but I don’t quite buy it; the author is straining a good deal, I think, to suggest that neoliberal contrarianism was something like a dose of libertarianish skepticism in the face of ascendant progressive liberalism, or that somehow the Obama administration today–and its wonkish policy supporters like Ezra Klein–represents a return to such progressivism, and is in need of more good old early 80s-style contrarianness. If anything, I think, Peters’s pre-DLC neoliberalism was a vaguely civic-minded, even communitarian, reproach to the liberationist individualism leftover from the 60s and 70s, a hippie movement which had calcified into bureaucracies committed to multiculturalism. There was hardly anything about it which paralleled the libertarian critique at all. (Also, it’s worth noting that the firing of Noah, who is a strong progressive liberal, directly counters the Reason piece’s thesis.)
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I’m liking it, too.
Freshening up a publication always involves changing writers. Sounds like Noah may have thought he was bigger than the mag he was writing for; that seldom ends well.
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