Rich Lowry Will be Promoted Out of His Editor Position at National Review, Supposedly So He Can Concentrate on Big-Picture Stuff

I don't know if I believe that the termination of his job overseeing National Review is actually a "promotion," supposedly for an even betterer job overseeing "long-term" initiatives.

It's weird. As you know, I'm Slightly Psychic. All last week, like on five separate incidents, I had this idea that Rich Lowry would be asked to leave his job at NR.

However, my psychic powers, while real, are as weak as ever. I certainly did not expect National Review to double-down on their brand of weak-sister split-the-difference push-corporate-libertarianism-and-rebrand-it-as-Sacred-Principles-Conservatism by installing effeminate NeverTrumper Ramesh Ponuru as the new editor.

As bad as Lowry is, Ponnuru is worse. Lowry at least pretends to care for the opinions and desires of the conservative base. Ponnuru -- of corporate pass-through organization AEI, and leftwing Bloomberg -- is scornful of it and hostile to it.

Supposedly -- and again, I don't know if I believe this -- it's a "growth period" for National Review.

I occasionally read their comments to see how their "evolution" is being greeted. I can definitively state that National Review is experiencing a "growth period" in leftwing commenters imported from places like Slate and Salon.

Rich Lowry, the longtime editor of the conservative opinion magazine National Review, is stepping down from his role overseeing the print publication to focus on more strategic long-term initiatives as the company's editor-in-chief, Lowry tells Axios.

Ramesh Ponnuru, a longtime editor with the outlet, will lead the magazine.
Why it matters: The transition comes amid a growth period for the 65-year-old magazine and now-digital media outlet.

By the numbers: National Review has roughly 110,000 subscribers, about half of which are digital. It's increased digital subscriptions about 30% over the last year.

Note they mean NRPlus. This is not a big deal as it seems, as NRPlus only started in 2018. When you start from zero you have room for growth.

However, this claim would be a big deal:

Total revenue has been up about 20% over the last year, per Lowry, who cited the company's growth in circulation, podcast and email revenue.

If these numbers are true -- I don't see any citation to anyone but Rich Lowry -- then NR is obviously not in the dire financial straits I imagined it was in.

"A few years ago, we had an overall operating loss of almost $2 million," Lowry says. "We have closed the gap considerably the last couple of years and are now much closer to break even."

The company, which is a subsidiary of the nonprofit National Review Institute (NRI), has raised more than $1 million over the last year in small-dollar donations from its readers -- most of it over the last three months.

And how much has it raised in very large donations from corporate clients?

National Review always claims that the magazine itself doesn't take money from Google.

But you know who does? The National Review Institute, which funds the National Review magazine.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed that the tech giant gave funds to the National Review Institute, the policy arm of establishment conservative magazine National Review -- but there is a discrepancy in Pichai's explanation of why the donation is not listed in the company’s annual transparency report.

Pichai used his written answers to congressional questions to disclose his company’s donation to the National Review Institute, which was revealed by National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg last year. The Google CEO confirmed the donation, stating that it was made in 2018 and would, therefore, be disclosed in the company’s next report.

"Google has a long history of supporting organizations on all sides of the political spectrum," said Pichai. "Google was one of several corporate sponsors of the National Review Institute's William F. Buckley Prize Dinner in 2018, which is scheduled to be reported in our upcoming transparency report."

But the National Review Institute's website states that it received a donation from Google a year earlier, in 2017. This donation was not disclosed in Google's transparency report for that year.

Google's contributions to the National Review Institute were brought to light by a report in the left-leaning technology magazine Wired, which detailed a number of the tech giant's contributions to establishment conservative institutions in order to fend off tech regulation from Republicans. Other organizations funded by Google include the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

National Review subsequently published an article from a senior member of the CEI, arguing against the use of antitrust legislation to break up Google and other big tech companies. The article was published four months after the National Review Institute's 2017 William F. Buckley Prize Dinner, which as the Institute's own website discloses, was sponsored by Google among other companies.

National Review claiming it doesn't get money from Google, when its parent organization does take money from Google and then funds National Review with it, is every bit as absurd a lie as St. Anthony Fauci vowing that his agency doesn't fund the Wuhan lab, because his agency merely funds EcoHealth Alliance, which then takes his money and sends it to Wuhan.

I honestly do not know how they get away with such obvious lies.

Update: Pep notes that this kind of lie is well-tolerated in Media Culture:

PBS claims some very small % of its budget comes from taxpayers. Instead, much of their programming is bought by the Corp. for Public Broadcasting. Guess where their money originates.

Posted by: pep

Also an update:

34 I plowed Rich Lowry's wife like a fresh spring field

she does pilates you know

Posted by: The Paolo

posted by Ace at 12:02 PM

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