Outlet profile

The New Republic

U.S. left

Owned byWin McCormack, an Oregon-based publisher and co-founder of Mother Jones, has owned the outlet since February 2016

FundingSubscriptions (print and digital) and advertising, supplemented by the owner's personal financial support; print circulation is approximately 40,000 with roughly 1.8 million monthly unique online visitors; no state funding or outside investors

On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The New Republic was founded on November 7, 1914, by journalists Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, and Walter Weyl, with backing from heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and her husband Willard Straight. From the outset it promoted progressive causes including labor rights, women's suffrage, and a powerful federal government. Martin Peretz, who purchased the magazine in 1974, steered it toward a more centrist and hawkish foreign policy posture, with particularly strong support for Israel, while retaining a liberal domestic outlook. In 1998 the magazine suffered a major credibility crisis when it was revealed that staff writer Stephen Glass had fabricated dozens of articles, leading to his dismissal and lasting reputational damage. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes bought the outlet in 2012 and invested more than $20 million in a digital overhaul, but in December 2014 he and his CEO attempted to recast it as a 'vertically integrated digital media company,' prompting editor Franklin Foer, literary editor Leon Wieseltier, and most of the masthead to resign en masse. Win McCormack acquired it from Hughes in February 2016, restored a traditional editorial approach, and relaunched print publication in 2017. Under editor Michael Tomasky, who joined in 2021, the magazine has maintained a clearly left-of-center voice focused on domestic policy, civil liberties, and what it characterizes as threats to democratic norms.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-06-25; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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