One hundred years ago, the magazine The New Republic (TNR) was founded by journalist icon Walter Lippman and others as a liberal, intellectual journal. In recent decades, its editorial drift has been decidedly neocon, particularly related to Middle East policy and support of Israel, thanks to former publisher and Islamaphobe Martin Peretz and a string of neoconservative editors. Then, two years ago, the journal was bought by Facebook wonder boy co-founder Chris "Fuzzy Nuts" Hughes, and the magazine's fate was sealed. He doubled down by hiring clueless Yahoo News exec Guy Vidra, who has shown he has no sense of the magazine's historic significance, pronouncing it "boring." (Hey, Vid, why not make TNR a video game? That's rad, dude!)
Hughes announced a "new direction" for the venerable journal on Wednesday in a somber meeting at its Washington offices, a direction that will transform the magazine into a version of Buzzfeed, with the hardcopy journal reducing its frequency of publication and many staffers laid off. That announcement has prompted the mass resignations of such well-known TNR writers as editor Franklin Foer, Leon Wieseltier, John Judis, Alec MacGillis, and Jason Zengerle, among a dozen others. Many contributing editors have written to ask that their names be removed from the magazine's masthead.
BONUS: Esquire's Charles P. Pierce adds his voice to the outraged.
BONUS II: Here's a graphic view (click to enlarge) of the mass exodus, via TNR's transformed masthead:
