MEDIA NOTES Conservatism is again a Spectator sport By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff
The last few years haven't been kind to The American Spectator.
Circulation, once around 300,000, is now about 65,000. Writer David Brock, once the conservative magazine's top gun, wrote a book repenting for his sins as a right-wing journalist. Technology analyst George Gilder's decision to buy the magazine two years ago and focus more on economics didn't pan out.
And the Spectator doesn't have its primary target - Bill Clinton - to kick around any more.
But in the July/August issue, editor in chief R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. writes that ''the old gang of editorial ruffians is glad to be back,'' and the Spectator is clearly looking to reclaim its past identity.
Gilder recently returned the magazine to the nonprofit foundation that used to run it. Now the Spectator plans to reprise its role as a noisy trumpet of what Tyrrell calls ''unabashed conservatism,'' to move from bimonthly to monthly publication next year, and to boost circulation back to about 100,000.
Under the Gilder regime, ''the content was too heavily techie ... and insufficiently involved in culture and politics. I didn't exert much authority during George's days,'' said an energized Tyrrell in an interview. ''This is where we belong.''