Editor | R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. |
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Categories | Politics |
Frequency | Monthly |
Founder | George Nathan and Truman Newberry |
First issue | 1924 |
Company | American Spectator Foundation |
Country | United States |
Based in | Arlington, Virginia, U.S. |
Language | English |
Website | spectator |
ISSN | 0148-8414 |
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation.
From 1967 until the late 1980s, the magazine featured the writings of authors such as Thomas Sowell, Tom Wolfe, P.J. O'Rourke, George F. Will, Malcolm Gladwell, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Malcolm Muggeridge. During the 1990s, the magazine was better known for its reports on Bill Clinton and its "Arkansas Project", funded by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife and the Bradley Foundation.The American Spectator has carried articles by Thomas Sowell, a regular column by economist and celebrity Ben Stein, as well as articles by a variety of less-famous conservative commentators such as former Reagan aide Jeffrey Lord, conservative health care consultant David Catron, and editorial director Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, as well as occasional articles by P.J. O'Rourke.
The American Spectator was founded in 1924 by George Jean Nathan and Truman Newberry. In 1967, the Saturday Evening Club took it over and re-christened it The Alternative: An American Spectator.
After operating under the name The Alternative: An American Spectator for several years, in 1977 the magazine changed its name to The American Spectator because, in editor Tyrrell's words, "the word 'alternative' had come to be associated almost exclusively with radicals and with their way of life." In fact, Tyrrell had started the magazine as a conservative alternative to the student radicalism at the nation's universities in the 1960s. American Spectator is unrelated to The Spectator, a British magazine of somewhat similar format and anti-establishment conservatism.