Markos Zúniga is excited that the leftist London Guardian is starting a weekly magazine:
To be sure, the Guardian is not the antithesis of Fox. We need a television and radio network to counter the forces of the Right. But, in conjunction with Gore’s television network and the proposed liberal radio network, we’re seeing the genesis of resurgence in a real, honest-to-goodness liberal media.
Bringing the Guardian to these shores — a publication that has far more cachet post-war than our resident left mags like the New Republic or the Nation. The former is no longer “lefty” by any stretch of the imagination, and the latter is largely irrelevant (flame away, Nation fans).
But the Guardian? Finally a publication with real influence, with some of the best writers in the English-speaking world, and with none of the nationalistic or corporate influences that have made a mockery of US “journalism”.
We need a quality print periodical that can provide the intellectual foundation for the liberal agenda (much as the Weekly Standard has done for the Right). The Guardian would be perfect.
To quote a certain High Official, “Bring ’em on.” The more media choices, the better, and the Guardian has a long history.
I disagree, as might be expected, that there is a dearth of leftist opinion writers available in the US market. I agree with Markos’ assessment of the Nation, which has become such a fringe journal as to have little influence, but the op-ed pages of the major newspapers are filled with liberal pundits. Ditto ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. Granted, all these outlets also feature conservatives, but they are seldom in the lead. (Witness the long relegation of George Will to “commentator†status on This Week whereas his leftist counterparts are cast as objective “hostsâ€.)
There is probably no leftist magazine comparable to Weekly Standard–but there are no other conservative magazines with that much influence, either. National Review’s heyday has long passed. And even the Standard is influential primarily because they signed up already-established writers and have managed to leverage their influence into the television arena, where Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol are regularly seen. Indeed, the actual readership of any of those magazines is rather small and relegated almost entirely to the true believers.
