Back on the Horse

Hey, check it out! Uninformed musings from a delusional idiot with a following about the uniformed musings of a delusional idiot with a following! It's like looking at a mirror in a mirror in a mirror in a....

Ann Althouse suggests that liberal magazine sales are down now that Obama is in office. From what I understand, that's not exactly surprising; the conventional wisdom around here is that political magazines do best when their party is out of power. On the other hand, there is this recession on, and I don't know that conservative magazines have seen their circulation rise. Personally, I just decided not to renew our subscription to Harper's, not because it's run out of anti-Bush hate, but because I've been reading it less and less. On the other hand, I guess you could argue that Bush hatred infused the magazine with an energy that it's now lost.

So, Megan, tell us about the magazines you read!

And -- so as to save brad the trouble of making the note -- as far as we know, neither Megan McArdle, nor myself, nor brad, nor M. Bouffant, nor Connor Friedersdorf, nor Ann Althouse is, in fact, Ann Althouse.

Update: She doesn't even read her own links (like me!)! From the Vanity Fair article Ann Althouse links:

The year 2009 was a tough one for magazines in general, with circulation down 2.23 percent overall, according to ABC (the decline in advertising revenue was far greater and more detrimental, but that’s another story). The three leading liberal political magazines, however, fared particularly badly. The Nation’s circulation in 2009 was down 7.4 percent from 2008, Mother Jones was down 6.7 percent, and Harper’s was down 5 percent.

(...)

What about the conservative magazines? The most prominent and biggest-selling, The National Review, definitely seemed to experience an Obama-hatred bump in 2009. Paid circulation was up a solid 4.8 percent from 2008, and was 16 percent greater than the magazine’s 2003-2008 average. The Weekly Standard rose by 8.4 percent, with an especially big spike in the second half of the year. As for relative newcomer Newsmax, which has less name recognition than the Standard but a higher circulation (an average of 101,370 copies in 2009 versus 77,470), its circulation held steady.