The Weekly Standard
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The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative political magazine published 48 times per year. It made its debut on September 17, 1995 and is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is viewed as a leading outlet of the influential neoconservative movement. Its current editors are founder William Kristol, chairman of the Project for the New American Century, and Fred Barnes. Kristol had originally intended to call the magazine "The American Standard" but changed his mind when it was pointed out to him that this name had already been trade-marked by the plumbing fixture company of the same name. The Weekly Standard produces "The Daily Standard" with commentary and articles written for the magazine's website.
Other frequent contributors include Stephen Schwartz, Matt Labash, and Stephen F. Hayes.
It is very popular among United States President George W. Bush's administration. According to Vanity Fair (July 2003; as quoted by Ben Bagdikian in The New Media Monopoly), the office of Vice President Dick Cheney alone receives a special delivery of thirty copies. (The entire White House receives over a hundred copies of the Wall Street Journal daily). Despite the magazine's percieved closeness to the administration, William Kristol has called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield multiple times in the pages of the magazine.
Unusually for a magazine that deals primarily with very in depth political issues, it regularly centres its covers around cultural issues. For example recent covers have been about Mozart's birthday (the caption being "Happy Birthday, Wolfgang) and one had an in depth look at the painting "American Gothic" (the caption being "American Gothic - then and now, with a picture of a young modern couple in place of the farmers).
Advocacy Journalism
The Weekly Standard, like The Nation, is an example of advocacy journalism, a genre of journalism which favors subjectivity over objectivity. In an interview with senior Standard writer Matt Labash published by JournalismJobs.com in May 2003, Labash was asked why conservative media outlets had enjoyed recent popularity. Labash responded "Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it actually." [1]
The Weekly Standard's War
In the Weekly Standard's November 17, 1997 cover story, "Saddam Must Go", editor Bill Kristol and contributing editor Robert Kagan called for war against Iraq: "We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it's time to start thinking the unthinkable." Kristol and Kagan argued that Saddam Hussein had humiliated the United States by expelling U.S. officials from U.N. weapons inspection teams. The editorial cited unspecified sources about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capabilities and concluded: "If you don't like this option, we've got another one for you: continue along the present course and get ready for the day when Saddam has biological and chemical weapons at the tips of missiles aimed at Israel and at American forces in the Gulf. That day may not be far off."
In an "In These Times" story looking back over the Standard's 10-year history, Craig Aaron reported that the "Saddam Must Go" piece "is widely credited with planting the seeds for the invasion and occupation of Iraq."