Who Owns the Free Press? Meet the Moguls Who Control Liberal Thought

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” The late, great A. J. Liebling wrote that in The New Yorker back in 1960. And, over six decades later, Liebling’s wisdom still pertains. This was driven home for me by today’s insider piece on Harper’s magazine by the New York Times savvy media columnist, Ben Smith. In his weekly column, Smith declares Harper’s “media’s oddest workplace” – and as he makes plain, that oddness flows directly from the magazine’s long-time publisher, John R. MacArthur. Among his many “odd” moves, MacArthur ordered his 17-member staff back to their Manhattan office during the height of the Covid-19 contagion because he felt “happiest” there; crushed a union movement; and has insisted on keeping staff pay lower than New York’s cost of living (and not paying interns at all) – a financial policy that ensures Harpers is edited by a disproportionately white and well-to-do team. MacArthur also flips his top editors at whim, and imposes his opinions on the publication when he feels passionately about an issue (the so-called cancel culture is a major irritant of his).

MacArthur can do what he wants with Harpers because he owns it – or to be more precise, he keeps it afloat as a nonprofit entity with multimillion infusions of cash each year from his family foundation. The family fortune, which is based on the insurance empire built by MacArthur’s grandfather, also bankrolls the annual MacArthur genius awards.

Laurene Powell Jobs

Harper’s is not the only leading liberal thought publication held in hostage by one or two wealthy owners. In fact, that’s the rule in this sector of the media industry. The Atlantic is owned mostly by Laurene Powell Jobs -- the widow of the late Apple mogul Steve Jobs, who is worth $20 billion -- with a large minority stake held  by David Bradley, a Harvard Business School-educated corporate consultant.

Even The New Republic – the scrappiest, most left-wing of the three -- has been owned in recent years by wealthy publishers, most recently Win McCormack, a Democratic Party fundraiser. McCormack, who fancies himself a man of letters, recently got excited by Harvard social scientist Robert Putnam’s new book, Upswing, which bashes 1960s radicalism for fragmenting America. McCormack could jump on Putnam’s weirdly reactionary bandwagon in his progressive publication – because he can!

Win McCormack

 I subscribe to all three thought magazines of the left – because there’s usually some deep reporting if not thinking in them that’s worth reading. The New Republic under top editor Chris Lehman is particularly intellectually lively these days. But I’m always aware of these publications’ ownership structures, and the editorial hires and policies imposed thereby on these magazines.

I know from personal experience what it’s like to work in the editorial fields of plantation owners. My first major editorial staff job was in the 1980s at Mother Jones magazine, which although also structured as a nonprofit, was essentially owned by Adam Hochschild, an heir to his family’s African mining fortune. Adam is a talented writer – and two of his best books (King Leopold’s Ghost, about the cruelty of the Belgian empire, and Half the Way Home, a family memoir) grapple, at least in part, with his troubled legacy. But, like all wealthy publishing moguls, Hochschild imposed his wishes and whims on the editorial direction of Mother Jones – sometimes against the better judgement of the staff and to the editorial detriment of the magazine.

Not to dwell on the past, but the magazine should have run Jason Berry’s stunning, well-researched expose of the Catholic Church’s coverup of widespread sexual abuse. If we had, Mother Jones would have scooped the Boston Globe’s award-winning Spotlight investigative series by well over a decade. And maybe Adam himself would agree today that I would’ve made a better Mother Jones editor-in-chief than the volatile and narcissistic Michael Moore, who quickly lost the staff’s support and was soon fired by Hochschild.

This is not to single out Hochschild, whom as I say later established himself as an accomplished, bestselling historian. He was one of the better owners of the liberal press. But the problem is bigger than any individual: no multimillionaire or billionaire should control the free press.

And, of course, this is not a problem only for struggling thought magazines, but also for the daily newspapers which are the bedrock of democracy. Jeff Bezos – the richest man in the whole fucking world – bought the Washington Post for pennies on the dollar from the Graham family in 2013. Bezos is credited with saving the Post, pumping much-needed capital into the newsroom. But the Post will never win any Pulitzers for hard-hitting exposes of Amazon labor conditions. Nor will the newspaper deeply question the aggressive tenets of the U.S. national security establishment, considering the political philosophy of Bezos – the son of a Cuban immigrant – and Amazon’s huge contracts with the CIA and other federal agencies.

We also learn from today’s New York Times that the Chicago Tribune chain – which includes the Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News – is now in a tug of war between a ruthless hedge fund and two billionaires who reportedly have a more expansive view of a free press. So once again American journalism is faced with a Hobson’s choice – the cold avarice of Wall Street or the benevolence of billionaires.

Who should the free press belong to? Why the American people of course. One of the billionaires bidding for the Tribune empire – Maryland hotelier Stewart Bainum Jr. – apparently wants to hand over the newspapers that he would control to nonprofit organizations in their communities. If this happens, it could be a game-changer for American journalism.

But, of course, even nonprofit ownership structures are not necessarily dreams come true. Just ask the fired editors and cowed staff at Harper’s magazine.

John R. MacArthur

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