The American Spectator
Encyclopedia
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S.
monthly magazine
covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors such as Thomas Sowell
, Tom Wolfe
, P.J. O'Rourke, George F. Will, Malcolm Gladwell
, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Malcolm Muggeridge
, although today the magazine is best known for its reports in the 1990s on Bill Clinton
and its "Arkansas Project
", funded by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife
and the Bradley Foundation
.
, and was originally published in a tabloid format (it is now published in a traditional magazine
format).
After operating under the name The Alternative: An American Spectator for several years, in 1977 the magazine changed its name to The American Spectator because, in editor Tyrrell's words, "the word 'alternative' had come to be associated almost exclusively with radicals and with their way of life." In fact, Tyrrell had started the magazine as a conservative alternative to the student
radicalism
at the nation's universities in the 1960s. The Spectator
is also a British magazine of somewhat similar format.
During the Reagan Administration
, the magazine moved from Bloomington, Indiana
to suburban Washington, D.C.
s. The March 1992 issue contained David Brock
's expose on Clarence Thomas
accuser Anita Hill
. Brock and his colleague Daniel Wattenberg
soon moved on to a target of somewhat longer-lasting relevance: Hillary and Bill Clinton
. A January 1994 article about then-President Bill Clinton's sex life contained the first reference in print to Clinton accuser Paula Jones
, although the article focused on allegations that Clinton used Arkansas state troopers
to facilitate his extramarital sexual activities (see Troopergate). It only referred to Jones by her first name and corroborated few if any elements of her story. This article was the basis for the claim of damages a sexual harassment
lawsuit which started the chain of events resulting in President Clinton's impeachment
.
David Brock
recanted his accusations upon his departure from the conservative movement. He also denounced his Anita Hill article in his 2003 book Blinded by the Right
: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. He implies that Rush Limbaugh's coverage of his Anita Hill article instigated advertising on Limbaugh's network, which resulted in a large increase in the magazine's circulation. He also implies that this caused the magazine's content to '[move] away from thoughtful essays and scholarly reviews and humor pieces' to 'hit jobs'.
For his part, Wattenberg eventually incurred the displeasure of many fellow conservatives when he belatedly admitted that he had killed a story about rumors of President Clinton fathering a child out of wedlock (with a young African American
woman). Wattenberg actually tracked down a videotape of the woman being interviewed (by an unnamed third party who asked her what Wattenberg described as "softball" questions), but he never was able to interview her himself. Wattenberg's rationales for killing the story were that he had no proof that the story was true and that the woman's testimony was unconvincing. He said that she "seemed like a junkie." (The story was revived in 1999 by Matt Drudge
.)
Internal strife eventually led to the departure of long-time publisher Ronald Burr after a disagreement with Tyrrell led Burr to call for an independent audit of the magazine's finances. The departure of Burr and several prominent conservative figures from the magazine's board of directors resulted in conservative foundations pulling much of the funding the nonprofit had relied on to pay high salaries to Brock and Tyrrell, as well as to fund direct-mail campaigns needed to keep up the monthly's circulation. Faced with a budget crisis, the magazine, then led by publisher Terry Eastland, a former spokesman in the Reagan
Justice Department
, laid off staffers and cut spending significantly. The magazine also struggled to pay legal bills incurred from an investigation launched against it by President Clinton's Justice Department for alleged witness tampering in the Whitewater investigation
. The Justice Department investigation led to revelations about the "Arkansas Project
," a campaign by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife
to discredit the Clintons by funding investigative reporting at several conservative media outlets. The Justice Department investigation led nowhere and the Spectator was exonerated.
, a long time supporter of the magazine who was newly wealthy from an Internet business, purchased the magazine with the goal of turning it into a profit-making glossy with significant media buzz. Numerous staff members, demoralized by the ever-looming budget crises, were laid off or departed after Joshua Gilder and Richard Vigilante, took the reins and vowed to reach a new technology- and business-savvy audience. Circulation and budget losses continued and even increased in the Gilder era, and at one point the entire Washington-based staff other than Tyrrell and executive editor and web site editor Wladyslaw Pleszczynski
were laid off as operations were moved to Massachusetts
, where the rest of George Gilder's businesses were based. In 2003, George Gilder, who had lost most of his fortune with the bursting of the Internet stock bubble, sold the magazine for $1 back to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the magazine's original owner (the name was later changed to the American Spectator Foundation). The magazine then moved operations back to the Washington, D.C. area. Later that year, former book publisher Alfred S. Regnery
became the magazine's publisher. By 2004, circulation hovered at around 50,000.
protest. In the article, Howley asserts his aim to "mock and undermine" the protest against American Imperialism, and writes in the first person about his experiences protesting at the National Air and Space Museum
. This article, and the methods detailed within, was condemned by other publications due to perceived conflagration of journalism and politics. Prominent supporters of the article include Slates David Weigel, who called it "conservative media gold." The Economist wrote that Howley "winds up offering a vision of politics as a kind of self-focused performance art, or perhaps (to say the same thing) a version of "Jackass."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
monthly magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
Emmett Tyrrell
Robert Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is an American conservative magazine editor, New York Times bestselling author, and columnist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He writes under the byline R...
and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors such as Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a libertarian perspective...
, Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
, P.J. O'Rourke, George F. Will, Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell, CM is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. He is currently based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996...
, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Malcolm Muggeridge
Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
, although today the magazine is best known for its reports in the 1990s on Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
and its "Arkansas Project
Arkansas Project
The Arkansas Project was a series of investigations that were initiated with the intent of damaging and ending the presidency of Bill Clinton...
", funded by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife
Richard Mellon Scaife
Richard Mellon Scaife is an American newspaper publisher and billionaire. Scaife owns and publishes the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. With $1.2 billion, Scaife, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, is No...
and the Bradley Foundation
Bradley Foundation
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a conservative foundation with about half a billion US dollars in assets. According to the Bradley Foundation 1998 Annual Report, it gives away more than $30 million per year...
.
Founding and history
The American Spectator was founded as The Alternative in 1967 by Tyrrell and other students at Indiana UniversityIndiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
, and was originally published in a tabloid format (it is now published in a traditional magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
format).
After operating under the name The Alternative: An American Spectator for several years, in 1977 the magazine changed its name to The American Spectator because, in editor Tyrrell's words, "the word 'alternative' had come to be associated almost exclusively with radicals and with their way of life." In fact, Tyrrell had started the magazine as a conservative alternative to the student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
radicalism
Radicalization
Radicalization is the process in which an individual changes from passiveness or activism to become more revolutionary, militant or extremist. Radicalization is often associated with youth, adversity, alienation, social exclusion, poverty, or the perception of injustice to self or others.-...
at the nation's universities in the 1960s. The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
is also a British magazine of somewhat similar format.
During the Reagan Administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
, the magazine moved from Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
to suburban Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The 1990s
The publication gained prominence in the 1990s by reporting on political scandalPolitical scandal
A political scandal is a kind of political corruption that is exposed and becomes a scandal, in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, corrupt, or unethical practices...
s. The March 1992 issue contained David Brock
David Brock
David Brock is an American journalist and author, the founder of the media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, and a Democratic political operative...
's expose on Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
accuser Anita Hill
Anita Hill
Anita Faye Hill is an American attorney and academic—presently a professor of social policy, law and women's studies at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she alleged that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had...
. Brock and his colleague Daniel Wattenberg
Daniel Wattenberg
Daniel Eli Wattenberg is an American journalist and musician. He was raised in Bethesda, Maryland. His father is the pundit Ben Wattenberg and his aunt is the actress Rebecca Schull...
soon moved on to a target of somewhat longer-lasting relevance: Hillary and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. A January 1994 article about then-President Bill Clinton's sex life contained the first reference in print to Clinton accuser Paula Jones
Paula Jones
Paula Corbin Jones is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. The lawsuit was dismissed before trial on the grounds that Jones failed to demonstrate any damages...
, although the article focused on allegations that Clinton used Arkansas state troopers
Arkansas State Police
The Arkansas State Police is the state police agency for Arkansas, which has jurisdiction anywhere in the state. It was created to protect the lives, property and constitutional rights of people in Arkansas...
to facilitate his extramarital sexual activities (see Troopergate). It only referred to Jones by her first name and corroborated few if any elements of her story. This article was the basis for the claim of damages a sexual harassment
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
lawsuit which started the chain of events resulting in President Clinton's impeachment
Impeachment of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton, President of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998, but acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. Two other impeachment articles, a second perjury charge and a charge of abuse of...
.
David Brock
David Brock
David Brock is an American journalist and author, the founder of the media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, and a Democratic political operative...
recanted his accusations upon his departure from the conservative movement. He also denounced his Anita Hill article in his 2003 book Blinded by the Right
Blinded by the Right
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative is a 2002 book written by former conservative journalist David Brock detailing his departure from the conservative movement. It is also the story of his coming out as a gay man. In the book, he states that he visited gay bars with Matt...
: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. He implies that Rush Limbaugh's coverage of his Anita Hill article instigated advertising on Limbaugh's network, which resulted in a large increase in the magazine's circulation. He also implies that this caused the magazine's content to '[move] away from thoughtful essays and scholarly reviews and humor pieces' to 'hit jobs'.
For his part, Wattenberg eventually incurred the displeasure of many fellow conservatives when he belatedly admitted that he had killed a story about rumors of President Clinton fathering a child out of wedlock (with a young African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
woman). Wattenberg actually tracked down a videotape of the woman being interviewed (by an unnamed third party who asked her what Wattenberg described as "softball" questions), but he never was able to interview her himself. Wattenberg's rationales for killing the story were that he had no proof that the story was true and that the woman's testimony was unconvincing. He said that she "seemed like a junkie." (The story was revived in 1999 by Matt Drudge
Matt Drudge
Matthew Nathan Drudge is the American creator and editor of the Drudge Report, a news aggregation website. Drudge is self-described as being conservative and populist. Drudge has also authored a book and hosted a radio show and a television show.-Early years:Matthew Drudge was raised in Takoma...
.)
Internal strife eventually led to the departure of long-time publisher Ronald Burr after a disagreement with Tyrrell led Burr to call for an independent audit of the magazine's finances. The departure of Burr and several prominent conservative figures from the magazine's board of directors resulted in conservative foundations pulling much of the funding the nonprofit had relied on to pay high salaries to Brock and Tyrrell, as well as to fund direct-mail campaigns needed to keep up the monthly's circulation. Faced with a budget crisis, the magazine, then led by publisher Terry Eastland, a former spokesman in the Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
, laid off staffers and cut spending significantly. The magazine also struggled to pay legal bills incurred from an investigation launched against it by President Clinton's Justice Department for alleged witness tampering in the Whitewater investigation
Whitewater (controversy)
The Whitewater controversy was an American politics controversy that began with the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed business venture in the 1970s and 1980s.A New York...
. The Justice Department investigation led to revelations about the "Arkansas Project
Arkansas Project
The Arkansas Project was a series of investigations that were initiated with the intent of damaging and ending the presidency of Bill Clinton...
," a campaign by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife
Richard Mellon Scaife
Richard Mellon Scaife is an American newspaper publisher and billionaire. Scaife owns and publishes the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. With $1.2 billion, Scaife, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, is No...
to discredit the Clintons by funding investigative reporting at several conservative media outlets. The Justice Department investigation led nowhere and the Spectator was exonerated.
2000s
As shortfalls continued, George GilderGeorge Gilder
George F. Gilder is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual, Republican Party activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute...
, a long time supporter of the magazine who was newly wealthy from an Internet business, purchased the magazine with the goal of turning it into a profit-making glossy with significant media buzz. Numerous staff members, demoralized by the ever-looming budget crises, were laid off or departed after Joshua Gilder and Richard Vigilante, took the reins and vowed to reach a new technology- and business-savvy audience. Circulation and budget losses continued and even increased in the Gilder era, and at one point the entire Washington-based staff other than Tyrrell and executive editor and web site editor Wladyslaw Pleszczynski
Wladyslaw Pleszczynski
Wladyslaw "Wlady" Pleszczynski is an American conservative editor and writer. He is editorial director and web editor of The American Spectator...
were laid off as operations were moved to Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, where the rest of George Gilder's businesses were based. In 2003, George Gilder, who had lost most of his fortune with the bursting of the Internet stock bubble, sold the magazine for $1 back to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the magazine's original owner (the name was later changed to the American Spectator Foundation). The magazine then moved operations back to the Washington, D.C. area. Later that year, former book publisher Alfred S. Regnery
Regnery Publishing
Regnery Publishing in Washington, D.C., is a publisher which specializes in conservative books characterized on their website as "contrary to those of 'mainstream' publishers in New York." Since 1993, Regnery Publishing has been a division of Eagle Publishing, which also owns the weekly magazine...
became the magazine's publisher. By 2004, circulation hovered at around 50,000.
2010s
In 2011, Assistant Editor Patrick Howley published a piece detailing his infiltration of a Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
protest. In the article, Howley asserts his aim to "mock and undermine" the protest against American Imperialism, and writes in the first person about his experiences protesting at the National Air and Space Museum
National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...
. This article, and the methods detailed within, was condemned by other publications due to perceived conflagration of journalism and politics. Prominent supporters of the article include Slates David Weigel, who called it "conservative media gold." The Economist wrote that Howley "winds up offering a vision of politics as a kind of self-focused performance art, or perhaps (to say the same thing) a version of "Jackass."
Core editorial staff
- Publisher: Alfred S. Regnery
- Editor in Chief: R. Emmett Tyrrell
- Editorial Director: Wladyslaw PleszczynskiWladyslaw PleszczynskiWladyslaw "Wlady" Pleszczynski is an American conservative editor and writer. He is editorial director and web editor of The American Spectator...
- Associate Editor: W. James Antle III
- Managing Editor: Joseph Lawler
- Assistant Editor: Patrick Howley
External links
- The American Spectator official site
- Byron YorkByron YorkByron York is a conservative American columnist for the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor, and author who lives in Washington, D.C.-Career:...
, "The Life and Death of The American Spectator," The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, November 2001 - "Olson by a whisker", Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, May 2001 (article containing background information on the "Arkansas Project") - David Brock, "The Real Anita Hill", The American Spectator, March 1992 (unofficial site)
- David Brock, "His Cheatin’ Heart" ,The American Spectator, January 1994 (the "Troopergate" story)
- David Brock, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, CrownCrown Publishing Group-External links:*...
, 2002. ISBN 0-8129-3099-1 - R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (ed.), Orthodoxy: The American Spectator's 20th Anniversary Anthology, Harper & Row, 1987. ISBN 0-06-015818-2