Publisher’s Note: Gravitational Pull

I’m stealing the new editor’s metaphor. When I founded this magazine in 2003, I didn’t think we’d make it through the first year. After I left it in 2009, I never thought I’d return to it again. But decades later, the magazine is still here, and I recently found myself again at the helm. Why? Probably because in the 21st century, stocks in a magazine are an unsellable asset. So I was never able to completely sever my ties to it.

So what do you do with a magazine you can’t sell in a business that doesn’t make money anymore? You focus on the content. You try as hard as you can to publish things that matter, that influence public discourse, that tell hard truths, that are uncomfortable. If you don’t, you neither make money, nor do anything that matters.

With that in mind, I’m happy to welcome Bart Cameron back to the editor’s chair. Like me, he’s been pulled back to this magazine. Something I suspect neither of us foresaw for each other 20 years ago.