All Good Things…
In his final Editor’s Corner, David Masci says goodbye to a five-year love affair
Every major religion teaches us not to put too much stock in the things of this world, that moth, rust or theft will eventually take all that we have. Still, I had hoped that Discourse would survive long past next month, when the magazine was slated to celebrate its fifth anniversary. Alas, it will not.
After nearly five wonderful years, Discourse will stop publishing at the end of this week. I know I speak for the editorial team when I say that while the decision to shut down the magazine greatly saddens us, we’re also extremely grateful to have had the opportunity over the years to publish more than 1,500 thought-provoking essays on a wide array of diverse topics, to have worked with some of the best thinkers and writers around and, most especially, to have reached millions of readers.
The reason for the magazine’s demise has to do with the ever-shifting sands of Washington, D.C.’s think-tank world. For the past year, the Mercatus Center (which has generously provided funding for our magazine since its inception) has been in the midst of a major reorganization. As a result, a number of programs, including Discourse, have been handed their walking papers.
Mercatus gave us roughly a half a year to find a new institutional home for the magazine. But while my colleagues and I had literally dozens of conversations with people from a host of different organizations, and while a number of them expressed genuine interest in taking on or supporting Discourse, no one agreed to provide enough financing to keep us afloat.
We still have a number of active prospects. So, who knows? The break in publication may turn out to be temporary rather than permanent. I certainly hope so. But if this turns out to be goodbye, the Mercatus Center will continue to host the website and all its content, which means readers like you will continue to have access to everything we’ve ever published, entirely free of charge.
A Debt of Gratitude
At the end of last year, I published a piece in Discourse in which I paid tribute to the many editors, writers and others who worked so hard to help us build a great magazine. And while I won’t repeat everything I said in that essay (and will instead encourage you to read it), there are a few special people I’d like to thank again, starting with former Mercatus Center executive director Dan Rothschild. Discourse was Dan’s idea, and so you would not be reading this—or anything we’ve ever published—if he had not hatched a plan to create a new magazine and hired me and the editorial team to implement his vision. What’s more, for most of the magazine’s life, Dan was our de facto publisher, offering not only financial support but invaluable advice.
I also want to pay special tribute to my colleagues on the Discourse editorial team, Christina Behe and Jennifer Tiedemann. Christina came on board in the fall of 2020 just as we were preparing to launch the magazine. Her tremendous talents and creativity helped us to not only get the project off the ground, but to go from strength to strength as we moved forward. A few years later, Jen arrived and injected a whole new level of energy and enthusiasm into the magazine. Since she’s come on board, many of our best ideas and writers have come to us as the result of her tremendous talents and efforts. As I have told these two wonderful people on numerous occasions, I feel supremely blessed to have had the opportunity to work with both of them.
I also want to thank our freelance editors and writers. Amy Stern and Mary Horan have copy edited virtually all of our pieces with great skill and aplomb, helping to keep us on the straight and narrow. And while I don’t have room to list all of our wonderful writers, I’d like to call out just a few of our best, starting with Martin Gurri. Martin has been with us since the very beginning, quickly becoming not only our most popular contibutor but also a great friend and consigliere. I also want to send a special thank you to Michael Ard, Chuck Blahous, Garrett Brown, Robin Currie, Addison Del Mastro, Veronique de Rugy, Jon Gabriel, Nathan Goetting, Sahil Handa, Dan Kochis, James Lileks, John Mac Ghlionn, Christine McDaniel, Andrey Mir, Natasha Mott, Michael Puttré, Jack Salmon, Timothy Sandefur, Christian Schneider, Lyndi Schrecengost, Rob Tracinski and Weifeng Zhong. Each of these people routinely turned in wonderful work only to later surprise us with something even better.
Finally, let me thank you, our subscribers and readers. Everything we’ve done would be but a small tree falling in a vast forest if it were not for you. So, thank you all for giving us your most precious commodity, your time, and for coming along with us on this five-year journey.
Something Special
A couple of weeks ago, the editorial team and a few friends of the magazine got together for drinks at a local bar in Arlington, Virginia. It was a bit like an Irish wake, a time of sadness and mourning but also of joy and celebration. Extra-long hugs were exchanged and a few tears were shed, but mostly we just laughed and talked, remembering all of the fun we’d had doing this wonderful and important work. Each member of the editorial team got up to say a few words. At one point I told everyone that editing Discourse had not only been the best job of my life, but a five-year love affair. Implicit in everything my colleagues and I said was our sense of great pride: We knew we had accomplished something special.
Discourse was founded at a time of great social and political turbulence, a time of intense polarization, when the loudest, most extreme voices commanded the most attention. Our magazine was created to push against these prevailing trends, not by taking one side or another, but by publishing different and sometimes competing perspectives. We often ran pieces that I vehemently disagreed with, and that was not a bug, but a feature. And even when authors forcefully advocated for ideas, we insisted that they treat those on the opposing side with respect. That was a feature too. As I wrote in an essay published on Sept. 29, 2020, the day we launched the magazine: “No one was ever insulted into changing their minds.”
It’s hard for me not to think that Discourse was at least partly a victim of its success in the sense that there is much more elite interest in pressing one set of arguments than in creating a place, as the magazine’s tagline states, “where ideas meet.” At the same time, if this truly is our last week of publication, I feel confident that someone, somewhere, will create another forum that not only tolerates different perspectives, but encourages them. That’s because Discourse was more than a great magazine; it was and is a great idea. And while good things do eventually come to an end, good ideas last forever.
Thank you for your readership and support.
David
David Masci
Editor in Chief
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