At 84, The New Republic (TNR) is one of America's most venerable opinion journals, Known for actively engaging in serious intellectual debates, it has often shaped political and social debate. But recently, it has been forced to compete with a media world that has become increasingly visual--and the magazine has struggled to find its niche.

Pointing to the journal's editorial turnovers (it has gone through four editors in the last eight years) as well as a recent episode involving a freelance writer who fabricated stories, some argue the traditionally liberal weekly has lost some of its ideological focus.

"It has lost its mandate, its vision, and numerous editors," wrote Richard Blow in last December's issue of The Washington Monthly. "It has become smug and cynical--the embodiment of much that is wrong with political journalism today."

But while TNR hasn't completely lost its edge, it is clear that the magazine needs to go back to doing what it did best in order to compete with new media.

"We are trying to restore a bit more seriousness to the magazine, beefing up the intellectual content, getting more ideas into the magazine and more thought into the magazine," says Charles M. Lane '83, the magazine's current editor. "That's where our future lies".

However, this may not be an easy task. More intellectual content is certainly a noble goal, but in reality, it moves against the current trend towards visual media.

Already TNR is very content-heavy.

"This is a magazine that makes very few gestures to the cultural habits of our time," says Martin H. Peretz, who is both the magazine's chair and a lecturer in social studies at Harvard. "There are no pull quotes or lavish illustrations. The articles tend to be long and exacting."

But does long and exacting still cut it in today's information age?

Peretz certainly thinks so.

"We are survivors," says Peretz, who bought the magazine in 1974, pointing out that the magazine currently enjoys a near-high in both circulation and advertising. "It's been a stunning success. I would dare to say that there is no journal of opinion that provokes the kind of discussion and dispute which the The New Republic does."

The Changing Nature of Public Discourse

In recent years, alternative media--in the form of television, radio and the Internet--have rapidly encroached upon a domain traditionally occupied by print journalism.

"We are becoming more and more a visual culture," Peretz explain. "Pictorality is the medium through which ideas are communicated."

In attempt to appear more dynamic and hip, magazines have increasingly emphasized the visual element. One such example is Slate, an interactive Web-based magazine that was started two years ago by a former TNR editor, Michael E. Kinsley '72, also a former Crimson editor.