Harper's: How Relevant is It?

http://mediamythbusters.com/blog/?p=219

Many comments appended to the above post ponder the relevancy of Harper's. I've subscribed to Harper's on and off through the years. The Readings section is always excellent as are some of the essays and Lapham's columns. It's way overpriced at $6.95 per copy, so one is better off subscribing. All can agree most people have never heard of, let alone read, Harper's. This entry on Harper's from Namebase, though somewhat out-of-date, is still acute:

Harper's was founded in 1850, and in the late 1980s had a circulation of 182,000. It is designed for political liberals who claim some cultural assets, whose inherited wealth can afford the occasional indignation over corruption in high places. Editor Lewis H. Lapham seems to lack focus; he knows America is going to hell, but literate hand-wringing is preferred over investigative reporting. Publisher and president John R. MacArthur actually has some journalism experience... One might take MacArthur at his word but for the fact that unlikely magazines such as Vanity Fair and New Yorker are beginning to publish important investigative pieces, while Harper's just wimps along. ...

on 29 Dec 2007 at 7:57 am1Lou Minatti
I appreciate your hard work and research on this, Bob. But who the hell reads Harper’s?

on 29 Dec 2007 at 8:15 am2XReader
But who the hell reads Harper’s? I read Harper’s for years. When the Harper’s Foundation ended up as the mainstay for the magazine, the articles went towards the left, and my reading of Harper’s diminished.
...
on 29 Dec 2007 at 8:45 am6WAL
“I appreciate your hard work and research on this, Bob. But who the hell reads Harper’s?”
Second that,
I appreciate it also, but nobody’s read Harper’s since 1900. I genuinely wasn’t sure until pretty recently if the magazine even still existed or not.
...
on 29 Dec 2007 at 1:31 pm11Trevor
Harper’s is the premier socio-political journal in the country and it outsells “The Weekly Standard” and “National Review” combined 10-1. Unlike the fat boys with asthma talking tough neocons- it presents a virile unabridged mirror on the real events as they occur. It’s a magazine favored by Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, Cormac McCarthy, Harold Pinter, Stephen Hawking, Philip Roth, Admiral William Fallon head of Centcom and innumerable other international movers and shakers. Of course, Hugh Hewitt reads “The Weekly Standard” and John Podhoretz “The National Review” so I guess it’s even.

on 29 Dec 2007 at 1:46 pm12Mike
Trevor is correct, as are the other posters. Harper’s took a dive to the Left and never looked back. As a magazine that looks to promote it’s “narrative”, more ethical lapses were bound to emerge. Nevertheless, it is still well-read by the intellectual Left. But it is seen as more credible still than Mothoer [sic] Jones or American Prospect.

on 29 Dec 2007 at 2:06 pm13WAL
Harper’s is the premier socio-political journal in the country and it outsells “The Weekly Standard” and “National Review” combined 10-1.
It has a current circulation of 210,000. National Review’s circulation is about 160,000 and has varied between 140 and 200,000 in the past few years. The weekly Standard has a circulation of about 80,000 - so that’s pretty much a statistic you just made up.
More importantly, whatever its circulation is - when’s the last time anybody, on the right or left, ever uttered the sentence “did you see the article in Harper’s?”
I’ll answer that - 1900.
It’s cool to be able to cite a big name, but the author’s you’re listing are well past their prime (Thomas Pynch is what? 70?) and the other two, while being great men, were never known for their engaging writing ability. These men may have been heroes to you at some point, but there came a time when guys who were popular in the ’60s kept doing the same damn thing over and over again and became boring as hell. (I like Tom Wolfe, but even I’ll admit he’s lagged in recent years - you expect me to get excited about John Updike?). For some reason Harper’s insists on publishing those people. Too bad.
Because of its age and it’s former prominence, I’m sure it can still get libraries and other institutions to subscribe to it and inflate those numbers, but - this isn’t even a leftwing vs. conservative thing - I can’t think of anybody on the left or the right who’s ever given a damn within the past couple decades what they publish, because they don’t read it.

on 29 Dec 2007 at 2:08 pm14Thomass
I guess the corollary to who reads Harpers is why don’t people read Harpers. It’s because it is a leftwing partisan rag. A step up over The Nation which is a step up over Mother Jones…. Ergo, I doubt they’ll move on this. Their credibility was never a issue (to them or their readers). Only people who agree with them (regardless) buy their mag anyway… they don’t really care if its made up.
I’d add, the New Republic is better than any of them… and you saw how long it took to get them to move on a retraction… I’m betting Harpers will totally ignore you.

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Of course, I'll probably update this post soon.

26 March 2008 update: I just found this column by Canadian journalist Heather Mallick, who takes the magazine and its editor to task for a lack of women writers and for a general lack of humour. This is Gawker's reply.