Basic funding for The Baffler now comes from a deal Summers struck in 2011 with MIT Press: The publisher would give Summers $33,000 per issue over the course of the next five years. While that’s more than the magazine historically had to work with, it’s not enough to fund everything that Summers wants to do. He talks about raising several million dollars to found a research institute—“like the conservatives have”—that would employ writers like Frank, Lehmann, and Graeber and give them license to explore their interests without having to hustle for book contracts and freelance assignments. “[We’d be] making the free-market dogma seem as ridiculous as it is,” he says.
So he has been forced to fundraise, to seek out the sorts of rich donors who might be willing to fund an anti-free-market organization. “We estimate there might be 200 to 500 of them,” Summers said last fall. “But you can’t just send them a letter.” At first, it was rough going. “One woman, we’d have very pleasant conversations,” he said. “At the end, there was nothing. And I realized: I paid for lunch. Every time. I lost money.” With some coaching, Summers has gradually learned how to approach these people and solicit donations.
There are other new responsibilities, too: meetings with publishers, speaking engagements. After a life spent primarily on the intellectual outskirts, he seems pleased and occasionally surprised to find himself in a position of relative prominence. “The company I keep is a hell of a lot better than when I was an adjunct teacher,” he says.
Summers now travels from Boston to New York a couple times a month to meet with potential funders and donors. During a recent breakfast, he spoke of plans to put all the magazine’s archived content online, for free, in order to expand the audience and attract new readers. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he looked, for all the world, like a magazine editor. “This is the transformation,” he said, smiling as he reached for the check. “Now I have an iPhone, I have a second tie, and I can pay for breakfast.”
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#1 Posted by Jennifer Lockwood, CJR on Mon 1 Jul 2013 at 11:44 AM
Let's see. Roger Ailes is headlined as a 'wingnut commander' in CJR a couple of days ago. But CJR declares The Baffler admirable for publishing, among other non-wingnut opinions, that The Atlantic is 'a CIA front'. Then it labels David Stockman a crank a few days after gushing over John Summers. Note to the unwordly staffers at CJR - yes, there really are left-wing cranks and liberal wingnuts. Narrow political tests are the enemy of good journalism - although, to be fair, you will seldom go wrong in your journalistic career by tacking Left. Something CJR's young staffers, who apparently seek careers in the MSM, appear to have learned well. Don't rattle the cages of the MSM from the right! Of course, that means missing the story of American political journalism and its discontents. I expect Maureen Tkacik to be generating product for the MSM in a few years - these 'iconoclasts' seem to end up doing so after they grow up a bit, like the ubiquitous, practically brainless Ana Marie Cox and so many others.
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 17 Jul 2013 at 12:46 PM