A new outlet called The Argument aims to defend liberalism and to persuade readers toward specific solutions. Jerusalem Demsas, formerly of The Atlantic, will run the publication. The masthead pulls contributors from The Atlantic, Vox, Semafor, and Substack. The outlet emphasizes centrist, quantitative, and data-driven commentary and plans to translate policy wonk-speak into explainers for general audiences. Some contributors are noted for opinionating rather than reporting, raising questions about journalistic depth. The Argument claims to counter illiberal drift on both left and right, prompting skepticism about whether coverage will mirror Democratic Party orthodoxy.
This week, a new media venture unveiled itself and staked its claim to a firm defense of liberalism-something that's apparently in short supply. Under the gently rage-baiting headline, "The left gets a new publication," Semafor announced that "a group of left-leaning writers and journalists" would be forming an outlet called The Argument. It's run by former Atlantic writer Jerusalem Demsas, and its masthead draws from that outlet of left-baiting resistance fare, along with Vox, Semafor, and abundance-focused Substackers.
It's early days, but it sounds so far like a smaller, scrappier version of Demsas' last employer. With The Atlantic's vaunted yet now-cluttered star system, it's not a surprise that some of its employees would want to jump ship for something without the history of endorsing war crimes but squarely within the proud, reasonable centrist standard. The Argument's motto is "Join us. We're Libbing Out."
The dictum is revealing, though: This is a crowd of commentators with a quantitative and data-driven bent, and many of them have backgrounds in writing explainers or otherwise translating insider policy shop-talk and wonk-speak for the lay public. In the case of some prospective contributors-like the perpetually and confidently wrong pundit Matt Yglesias-they seem to have few fixed views at all and little experience with actual reporting.
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