Introducing the New In These Times
A new magazine for new times
Introducing the New In These Times
A new magazine for new times
August 9, 2017 | September Issue | Editorial
Earlier this year, In These Times surpassed 50,000 print subscribers for the first time in its 40-year history. That milestone didn’t just pop out of the ether. It is the result of hard work on the part of the staff and a public desire for political change, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1960s. And, of course, because of readers like you.
To ensure that In These Times is up to the challenge of this historic moment, we reached out to hundreds of supporters over the past few months. We asked for help in re-engineering In These Times to better serve progressives as we grapple with the political realities of these new times.
This new issue is the result of that feedback. Here are some of the things In These Times is recommitting to:
From the September issue of the new In These Times.
Going forward, In These Times will do even more to put community struggles for justice front and center, particularly acts of resistance ignored by the corporate media. You will find these stories in our new Dispatches section.
In These Times will continue nurturing a sense of progressive community. The magazine will serve as a forum for debate within the Left, as in our revamped Up for Debate section, and will spotlight local victories that can be used as blueprints for change.
My favorite community response came from Laura Orlando, who likes In These Times because of the “tone that sets it apart from other progressive publications.”
“It’s a tone that makes me want to read the magazine,” she wrote. “What it usually is not is the drumbeat about what is wrong with [fill in the blank]. Think of a child’s whine. ITT is the compassionate parent that says, ‘Yes dear, it’s hot, but just a little bit farther and we’ll be at the beach, feeling the ocean breeze.’ ” This belief that a better world is within our reach is something I vow will not change.
Another thing that will not change: In These Times will continue to publish investigative reporting that holds power to account. Trump administration officials, Republicans in state houses and governor’s mansions across the country, corporate entities that run amok and Democrats who fail to respond to a base that is demanding real change—that is to say, all who help perpetrate systemic injustice—will get particular scrutiny.
But even as we reorient to face the unique challenges of today, we haven’t forgotten where we come from. When I began reading In These Times, then a weekly, in 1979 in Columbia, Mo., it served in a sense as a community newspaper for a national network of progressives who, inspired by the rebellion of the 1960s, continued to fight for transformative change.
Historian James Weinstein, who founded In These Times, wrote, “Part of the reason the New Left [of the 1960s] disintegrated was that it had no intellectual center and no popular publication to disseminate its ideas and let people know what it was doing and why.” In These Times was established in 1976 to be that center. It remains our mission today.
I hope you'll agree that the new magazine distills what we do best. By publishing journalism that exposes the racial, economic and environmental injustices that define life in 21st-century America, and by covering movements for social change, In These Times challenges us to work together to expand the boundaries of what is possible.
is the Editor & Publisher of In These Times.
It’s time for an all-new In These Times. See why we’re re-inventing the magazine from the ground up, and how you can be part of it.
