In These Times

In These Times is an American politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published in Chicago, Illinois.[1]

For the album by Peter, Paul and Mary, see In These Times (album).

In These Times
Magazine cover, December 2016.
EditorJoel Bleifuss
CategoriesProgressive news and opinion
FrequencyMonthly
Circulation50,000 (as of 2017)
PublisherJoel Bleifuss
FounderJames Weinstein
Year foundedNovember 1976 (1976-11)
First issueNovember 1976 (1976-11)
CompanyInstitute for Public Affairs
CountryUnited States
Based inChicago, Illinois, U.S.
LanguageEnglish
Websiteinthesetimes.com
ISSN0160-5992
OCLC60620754

It was established as a broadsheet-format fortnightly newspaper in 1976 by James Weinstein, a lifelong socialist, with the aid of Julian Bond, Noam Chomsky and Herbert Marcuse.

It investigates alleged corporate and government wrongdoing, covers international affairs, and has a cultural section. It regularly reports on labor, economic and racial justice movements, environmental issues, feminism, grassroots democracy, minority communities, and the media.

Weinstein was the publication's founding editor and publisher; its current editor and publisher is Joel Bleifuss.

As of 2017, it had a circulation of over 50,000.[2] As a nonprofit organization, the magazine is financed through subscriptions and donations.

History

In 1976, Weinstein, an historian and former editor of Studies on the Left, launched the politically progressive journal In These Times. He sought to model the newsweekly on the early-20th-century socialist newspaper the Appeal to Reason. For some time, its tagline was 'The Socialist Newsweekly'. "We intend to speak to corporate capitalism as the great issue of our time, and to socialism as the popular movement that will meet it" he told the Chicago Sun Times on the eve of the first issue's release.[3] While Weinstein himself was involved with both the New American Movement and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, he wanted the journal to be independent of any one political party or faction. Thus, over the years it has published a wide variety of contributors – from anarchists, to union members, to centrists.

During the 1980s, the publication won notoriety for its investigative reporting of the Iran–Contra affair. It has since broken stories on the deliberate destruction of Iraqi water treatment plants by US forces during the first Gulf War (1990-1991), global warming, and on the emergence of mad cow disease.

During the 1980s, and up to 1992, it was a biweekly newspaper and a democratic-socialist competitor to the National Guardian, which was a biweekly newspaper that was closer to Marxism–Leninism.[4][5]

Senior editor Silja J. A. Talvi won two National Council on Crime and Delinquency PASS Awards (2005, 2006) for her reporting on the impact of three strikes sentencing on African-American men, and on the trend toward privatization of the prison system.

The magazine was awarded the Utne Reader's Independent Press Award for Best Political Coverage in 2006.[6]

Contributors

Two of the magazine's longest-running columns are Salim Muwakkil's The Third Coast, covering race relations, and Susan J. Douglas's Back Talk, a critical review of the mass media.

David Moberg has reported on labor and political economy for the magazine since its inception in 1976.

The magazine's editor Joel Bleifuss has written for it since the mid-1980s. More stories from his column, The First Stone, have been included in Project Censored's "Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year" than any other journalist.

Other columnists include H. Candace Gorman, Laura S. Washington and Terry J. Allen.

Senior editors include Allen, Patricia Aufderheide, Douglas, Moberg, Muwakkil and David Sirota.[7]

Notable contributors to the magazine have included:

See also

References
  1. Bill Bigelow; Bob Peterson (January 1, 2002). Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World. Rethinking Schools. p. 380. ISBN 978-0-942961-28-7. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  2. Bleifuss, Joel (August 9, 2017). "Introducing the New In These Times". In These Times.
  3. Chicago Sun Times. November 15, 1976.
  4. The Guardian of New York, NY, not the Manchester Guardian. Peter Miller, "Carl Davidson: From SDS and The Guardian, to cyRev and CyberRadicalism for the 21st Century"
  5. Elbaum, Max (2002). Revolution in the Air, Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. London/New York City: Verso. pp. 222. ISBN 1 85984 617 3. In These Times was the latest in a series of vehicles launched by James Weinstein to regain the initiative for left social democracy. ... ITT's immediate objective was to supplant the Guardian as the country's pre-eminent left newspaper.
  6. "Political Coverage: In These Times: 2006 UIPA Winners" Archived January 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Utne Reader. January / February 2007.
  7. "About In These Times". In These Times.
  • inthesetimes.com, the magazine's official website (a portion of its content is available free of charge; yearly subscriptions are available for the full print edition)
  • Fire on the Prairie – podcast (active 2003–2006) with interviews and speeches from progressive leaders
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