6. The problem with the rich funder model (which, to be upfront, is also TNR model) is that you're at the caprice of the funder. In Standard's case, GOP funders reluctant to lay out money for a magazine that is at war with Trumpized GOP.
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7. If you are a billionaire Republican, you are willing to lose money on a magazine like Weekly Standard because it gives you a voice in GOP policy & politics. But of what value is the magazine if it is marginalized by the existing party?
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8. There are other models for high-brow magazines. There's the covert CIA funding model (used by William Kristol's dad Irving at Encounter), the foundation funding model (used by the senior Kristol at Public Interest).
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9. There's the model of affiliating with an academic institution (true of countless little literary magazines and of course of much scholarly publishing).
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10. Finally, closer to home, there's the possibility of relying not on one or two big donors but many smaller ones. The model of The Nation, National Review & American Conservative.
@ToryAnarchist discusses that here:https://spectator.us/unhappy-demise-the-weekly-standard/ …4 replies 16 retweets 80 likesShow this thread -
11. The multiple smaller donors can be supplemented various branding & fundraising exercises like cruises, talks and festivals. Both the Nation and TNR have had branded wines (ours was quite good).
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12. While we're in a difficult media market, the fact is people do manage to put out smart good magazines & political journalism by mixing and matching different funding strategies (with things like digital subscriptions taking up slack of loss advertising).
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13. So rather than the large & gloomy Weberian problem of "corporate bureaucrats" what felled the Weekly Standard was a more narrow problem: a brittle business model depending on caprice of people who don't value their product (GOP billionaires).
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Jeet Heer Retweeted Dan McLaughlin
14. I can't believe I'm typing this but Baseball Crank (
@baseballcrank) makes a good point here that GOP billionaires seem narrowly utilitarian in wanting short term obvious benefits for their $$. (see discussion below)https://twitter.com/baseballcrank/status/1074145593616990208 …Jeet Heer added,
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Replying to @HeerJeet
This is basically the Polanyi Perplex, no? People think they have rights to things and processes. But the only rights the market recognizes are property rights. & the only property rights that carry social power are rights to resources useful in producing things for which the 1/
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