The American Spectator

The American Spectator, is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation.

From 1967 until the late 1980s, the magazine featured the writings of authors such as Thomas Sowell, Tom Wolfe, P.J. O'Rourke, George F. Will, Malcolm Gladwell, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Malcolm Muggeridge. During the 1990s, the magazine was better known for its reports on Bill Clinton and its "Arkansas Project", funded by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife and the Bradley Foundation. Currently. The American Spectator carries frequent articles by Thomas Sowell, a regular column by economist and celebrity Ben Stein, as well as articles by a variety of less-famous conservative commentators such as former Reagan aide Jeffrey Lord, conservative health care consultant David Catron, and editorial director Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, as well as occasional articles by P.J. O'Rourke.

Founding and history

American Spectator (literary magazine)

The American Spectator was a monthly literary magazine which made its first monthly appearance in November 1932. It was edited by George Jean Nathan, though Eugene O'Neill, Ernest Boyd, Theodore Dreiser, and James Branch Cabell were also listed as joint editors. The original editors left the publication in 1935, after which the paper continued monthly publication under new editors until October 1936. The American Spectator lasted another six months on a bimonthly before folding altogether.

Sherwood Anderson first published his short story entitled Brother Death in this journal. In 1933, the journal published a discussion, including some humor that not everyone recognized, on the Jewish question.

Anticipation

The publication was heralded before the first issue had even been published. A mainstream newspaper gossip columnist wrote: "New York's literati are in a furious flutter over the last word in literary high-hatting which is to be launched... Nathan and Boyd will be the office editors and O'Neill, Lewis and Dreiser, editorial writers... contributors will only contribute by special invitation from the editors... Payment for material to editors and other contributors will be one cent a word. No salaries whatever are to be paid Nathan and Boyd until financial conditions, if ever, warrant it... Contributors who have consented include Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann, James Joyce, William Faulkner..." None of those famous authors were ever published in The American Spectator, but the paper went on to become successful nonetheless.