Yes, it is that time again. Time to check in on The Nation, the 'leading' publication for the left, the weekly that has a woman as editor and publisher -- though you'd never know it from their sorry record on publishing women writers this year. Still, she is pictured above entertaining the male staff. We have two issues this edition.
June 11, 2007 issue. "Sick Justice" screams the cover headline and, no, they aren't pointing the finger at themselves over their ratio of male to female bylines.
Editorials & Comment
"Sick Justice" -- well there's a Mick Jagger (if not a Rolling Stones) fan at the head of the magazine and we've all heard "Rough Justice" off A Bigger Bang.
"Raw Deal On Immigration"
"Iraq Timeline Runs Out" -- no, we haven't made a mistake, they ran three unsigned editorials this issue.
Mark Weisbrot's "Wolfowitz and the Bank"
4 pieces
Score: 0 women, 1 man
Columns
Calvin Trillin's "A Letter to Paul . . ."
Alexander Cockburn's "The Greenhousers Strike Back, and Strike Out" -- which the editors slam in the next edition by hopping on a high horse that they felt no need to mount when they ran an anti-Arab ad despite the fact that one was awarded, not all that long ago, a little prize for portrayals of Arabs.
Katha Pollitt: "'Feckless'? No Way!" -- they do love headlines with punctuation at The Nation so that one must have provided multiple orgasms.
3 pieces
Score: 2 men, 1 woman
Articles
Stephen Glain's "Exodus"
Nick Turse's "The Secret Air War In Iraq" -- a well kept secret that The Nation intends to keep which is why the illustration for the cover is for an unsigned editorial as opposed to an actual article in the magazine.
Christopher Hayes' "Hip Heterodoxy" -- If it's Hayes, it's hip. In someone's mind.
3 pieces
Score: 3 men
Critics
Andrew Rice on Epstein & Nolen
Rae Armantrout's "Lengths (poems)"
Lizzy Ratner on Gawande and Chen
Stuart Klawans on three movies you'll never see.
4 pieces
Score: 2 men, 2 woman
For the issue: 8 men, 3 women
Year to date score: 63 women, 233 men
June 18, 2007 issue. If it's summer, it's Israel.
Editorials & Comment
"The Honeymoon Is Over" -- while most are filing for a legal separation (if not a divorce), The Nation acts like the Congressional Democrats caving on the Iraq war was akin to find out hubby left his socks in the hall at the end of the day. Honeymoon is over. Man, we could just stick out our tongues and pout over that! Fortunately, The Nation already has.
"Endless Occupation?" -- unsigned -- part of the Israel theme.
John Nichols' "Cindy Sheehan's Farewell" -- all she had to do in order to receive serious coverage from The Nation was to leave. That says a great deal about the priorities of the magazines. But remember, the week before Cindy Sheehan announced her departure, Katrina vanden Heuvel was using her Editor's Cut (on the day the supplemental was being passed!) to dish about how totally, far out, unbelievable, OMG-ish American Idol was. That'll end the war. And enlighten us all! (That was sarcasm.)
H. Abrishami's "Crackdown In Iran" -- we won't out "H." but we will note, "He's a man, baby."
Edward Jay Epstien's "The Polonium Papers"
Jonathan Cohen's "SI Cooks The Books"
6 pieces
Score: 4 men, 0 women
Columns
Calvin Trillin's "Monica Goodling Testifies . . ."
AlterPunk's "Potemkin Papers" -- Potemkin, Polonium, all these papers are starting to worry us. Are they rolling their own in the halls of The Nation? Surely not. They must just be grooving to some Betty Wright something fierce.
Naomi Klein's "Baghdad Burns, Calgary Booms" -- remember Labor Day.
3 pieces
Score: 2 men, 1 woman
Articles
Meron Benvenisti's "The Case for Shared Sovereignty"
Saree Makdisi's "For a Secular Democratic State"
Michael Reynolds' "The Abstinence Gluttons" -- where The Nation gets all up in arms that abstinence education is a sham. Welcome to the party. You're three years too late so the cake's all gone, but welcome.
3 pieces
Score: 3 men, 0 women
Critics
Brian Klug on Avishai, Rose, Rabkin and Ezrahi
Mark Sorkin on Savage
Barry Schwabsky on Gordon Matta-Clark
3 pieces
Score: 3 men, 0 woman
Issue score: 12 men, 1 woman
Year to date score: 64 women, 245 men
That's a little over 3.8 male bylines for every piece written by a woman.
We're still left with the four-to-one ratio.
The lack of women being featured in the magazine was brought to C.I.'s attention by a group of women late in 2006. For a column at Polly's Brew, C.I. went back and compiled the stats for that year. What we had discussed was following 2007's issues each time they arrived in the mailbox. Ava and C.I. were in charge of the December 24, 2006 edition and that was the first week that a 2007 issue had arrived (January 1, 2007 issue). They immediately started up "The Nation Stats." "The Nation Stats" ran again in our December 31st edition (covering the magazine's January 8, 2007 issue -- a "double issue"). January 21st, we covered the January 22nd issue in "The Nation Stats." January 28th, "The Nation Stats" covered two issues since two arrived the same day for three of us participating in this feature. February 4th, we covered the Feb 12th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 11th we covered the February 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 25th, we coved the February 26th issue in "The Nation Stats." March 4th we covered the March 5th and March 12th issues of the magainze in "The Nation Stats." March 11th, we covered the March 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." April 1st, we covered the March 26th and April 2nd issues in "The Nation Stats." April 8th, we covered the April 9th and April 6th issues in "The Nation Stats." April 22nd, we covered the April 32rd and April 30 issues in"The Nation Stats." April 29th, "The Nation Stats" addressed the May 7th issue. May 20th, "The Nation Stats" covered four issues -- May 14th, May 21st, May 28th and June 4th.