American Spectator magazine retools with tech focus
March 2, 2001 By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The American Spectator, the conservative journal that introduced alleged Clinton paramour Paula Jones to the world, has shifted its sights from misdeeds in Arkansas to the opportunities of the Information Age.
The monthly political magazine, known for its aggressive criticism of former President Clinton, announced this week that it would change its focus from politics to the New Economy of technology, finance and the Internet.
While the magazine will retain its conservative outlook on political issues, said founder and Editor-in-chief R. Emmett Tyrrell, much of the technology coverage will have a distinctly nonpartisan flavor.
"There's no politics in a lot of this," Tyrrell said. "How you remove an appendix is not a matter of politics unless you happen to be a Christian Scientist."
Tyrrell declined to say where the magazine would weigh in on issues such as Internet privacy or the Naspter debate, but he said the magazine will retain its broad anti-regulatory, small-government stance.
The March 2000 issue features a lengthy interview with supply-side Wall Street financier Lawrence Kudlow, a profile of a biotech start-up company, and an investment column, along with the usual political think pieces.
The issue also features a critical piece on Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy written by George Gilder, a technology writer and entrepreneur who bought the magazine last September.
Gilder, a frequent contributor to the magazine in the past, will play a large role in shaping the magazine's new focus, Tyrrell said.
"I think that when we talk about politics we have a political bent, but when we talk about what's happening on the Internet, we're going to leave that to George," he said.
CLINTON DEPARTURE PROMPTS CHANGE
Tyrrell said Clinton's departure from the White House was a major factor in the magazine's shift.
"We knew, being able to read a calendar, that he would be going," he said. "We were talking in 1997 about where to go next."
Victor Navasky, publisher and editorial director at liberal journal The Nation, said political opinion magazines often do better when times are worse for their readers.
Subscriptions to The Nation have picked up sharply in the wake of the election of Republican George W. Bush and the nomination of conservative Attorney General John Ashcroft, Navasky said.
"I think people do tend to gather 'round the campfire in times of adversity," he said. "There are some magazines that define themselves in opposition, and (The American Spectator) certainly was that for a number of years."
Founded in 1967, the magazine came to national prominence in the 1990s with its aggressive coverage of scandals tied to Clinton.
Early in Clinton's first term, the Spectator published a piece alleging that he used state troopers to procure women for sex while governor of Arkansas, including a state employee named Paula Jones.
Jones cited the magazine article in a sexual-harassment suit filed against Clinton that was eventually settled for $850,000.
The magazine's circulation jumped from 40,000 to over 270,000 in the early 1990s, and the nonprofit foundation which administered the magazine became a magnet for conservative donors. Billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife donated $2.4 million to finance its investigations of Clinton in Arkansas.
But the magazine came under scrutiny for its aggressive investigative tactics and the possible abuse of its tax-exempt status. Scaife withdrew support in 1997 after the magazine panned a book written by a favorite journalist suggesting that former White House aide Vince Foster had been murdered.
Circulation has now dropped to about 100,000, according to Tyrrell.
Navasky questioned the wisdom of changing a magazine's focus to match the interests of the owner, but Tyrrell said he had no such reservations.
"We want to write on (technology) with the same gusto we've written on Beethoven, boobs and Clinton in the past," he said. "That's not an anatomical reference, by the way."