William Pfaff’s “The decline of The New Yorker” (Op-Ed, March 10) presents a highly misleading picture of the magazine under its former owners, the Fleischmanns, and its editor, William Shawn.
Pfaff intimates that the magazine continued to be a monetary success up until the Newhouse family bought it in 1985. In fact, it had been consistently losing ad pages and revenue since the beginning of the decade, a fate shared by all the newsweeklies and all other weekly public-ations. The decline of tobacco, alcohol and automobile advertising has had much more effect on profitability then and now than any change in editorial content.
Further, Pfaff implies that Newhouse sought to trade editorial product for profits. He ignores Newhouse’s first appointment as editor, Robert Gottlieb, a highly regarded book editor who in five years made very modest adjustments to the magazine while ad pages declined even further.
The time clearly had come to update The New Yorker. Tina Brown arguably has created a new generation of readers, albeit with a product less precious, less idiosyncratic. Circulation is at an all-time high, and ad pages have begun to increase. Now part of Conde Nast, the magazine will potentially have greater efficiency and financial strength.
The battle for relevance and survival is not over. More than profits, the question will be: Does The New Yorker matter?