Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
"To try to contort the magazine into a narrowly political or ideological or polemical creature would be a gross mistake and a gross wrong," Kelly says solemnly. "The magazine has its identity and a new editor starts by respecting that identity. You would not do that to the Atlantic any more than you would try to turn the New Republic into the New Yorker."
Besides, he says, "It's not as if I have some overwhelming temptation to [editorialize] that I have to resist. I wandered into political writing -- purely op-ed writing -- by accident [by way] of the TRB column at the New Republic. People tend to know you as a writer by your current incarnation but the fact is that's not how I spent most of my career writing. I spent most of it as a generalist, sometimes writing about presidential campaigns but sometimes writing about wars, sometimes feature stories and sometimes profiles, and sometimes about food." (Corby Kummer, look out!) "I am actually delighted to edit a magazine that does allow me to publish stories across the whole canvass. It's a liberating notion for me and one I am greatly eager to take advantage of." Whitworth, whom Kelly calls "a genuinely great editor in the school of [fabled New Yorker editor William] Shawn," will edit the next several issues while Kelly learns the ropes, commuting back and forth between Washington and Boston. The National Journal, an inside-the-Beltway Congress-watching publication with fewer than 7,000 subscribers, will be edited by Charles Green and overseen by Kelly.
"There's a pretty long pipeline" at the Atlantic, says Kelly, with plenty of inventory; he's been calling contributors and reassuring them of his intentions, too. He speaks enthusiastically about a coming cover story, an excerpt from a book about an Indian reservation by Atlantic contributor Ian Frazier ("Great Plains," "Dating Your Mom"), and cites Stephen Budiansky's July article on deceptive dog behavior ("The Truth About Dogs") as the kind of thing he'd like to see more of. (Within a week of its issue, Kelly points out, four book publishers contacted Budiansky -- a testament to the Atlantic's continued position as a showcase for writers.)
And as far as the Sturm und Drang of Washington life goes, Kelly is still contracted to write his column for the Washington Post, should he feel the need to throw a few bricks the White House's way. That is separate from his editor's role; one of his first tasks as editor of the National Journal was to fire himself as a writer. "I do not write as the editor of anything," he insists. "They are my own opinions and that is all, for what they're worth. There are many who would say they are worth very little." The latest firing at the New Republic (Peretz replaced Charles Lane with senior editor Peter Beinart in unceremonious fashion last week) was surprising, perhaps, only to Lane. Kelly speaks highly of Beinart, who worked under him as executive editor at TNR. "Which is not taking anything away from Chuck, but change is a constant in the world of Peretz. If there must be change most people there would say they're pretty lucky." He feels lucky himself to be working for Bradley, who has allowed him to improve the quality of the editorial at the National Journal over the last 14 months. "He believes you can make money in magazines with very high standards for a very discerning readership by spending a lot of energy and effort and money on improving or maintaining those standards," he says -- sounding a bit like one of those ancient Atlantic editors, William Howells perhaps. "And if you do this, eventually you will be rewarded by the gods."
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