''In These Times'' is an American politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

. It was established as a

broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner and tabloid–compact formats. Description Many broadsheets measure roughly ...

-format fortnightly newspaper in 1976 by James Weinstein, a lifelong

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

. It investigates alleged corporate and government wrongdoing, covers international affairs, and has a cultural section. It regularly reports on labor, economic and racial justice movements,

environmental issues Environmental issues are effects of human activity on the biophysical environment, most often of which are harmful effects that cause environmental degradation. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on t ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

grassroots democracy Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes that shift as much decision-making authority as practical to the organization's lowest geographic or social level of organization. Grassroots organizations can have a v ...

, minority communities, and the

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

. Weinstein was the publication's founding editor and publisher; its current editor and publisher is Joel Bleifuss. , it had a circulation of over 50,000. As a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, the magazine is financed through subscriptions and donations.

History

In 1976, Weinstein, an historian and former editor of ''Studies on the Left'', launched the politically progressive journal ''In These Times''. He sought to model the newsweekly on the early-20th-century socialist newspaper the '' Appeal to Reason''. For some time, its tagline was 'The Socialist Newsweekly'. "We intend to speak to

corporate capitalism In social science and economics, corporate capitalism is a capitalist marketplace characterized by the dominance of hierarchical and bureaucratic corporations. Overview A large proportion of the economy of the United States and its labour mark ...

as the great issue of our time, and to socialism as the popular movement that will meet it" he told the ''

Chicago Sun Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' on the eve of the first issue's release. While Weinstein himself was involved with both the New American Movement and the

Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC; ) was a democratic socialist organization in the United States. The DSOC was founded in 1973 by Michael Harrington, who had led a minority caucus in the Socialist Party of America and disagr ...

, he wanted the journal to be independent of any one

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

or faction. Thus, over the years it has published a wide variety of contributorsfrom

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...

s, to union members, to

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the ...

s. During the 1980s, the publication won notoriety for its investigative reporting of the

Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...

. It has since broken stories on the deliberate destruction of Iraqi water treatment plants by US forces during the first

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

(1990-1991),

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, and on the emergence of

mad cow disease Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss. Later in the course of t ...

. During the 1980s, and up to 1992, it was a biweekly newspaper and a democratic-socialist competitor to the ''

National Guardian ''The National Guardian'', later known as ''The Guardian'', was a left-wing independent weekly newspaper established in 1948 in New York City. The paper was founded by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage and John T. McManus in connection with the 194 ...

'', which was a biweekly newspaper that was closer to

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and vario ...

. Senior editor Silja J. A. Talvi won two National Council on Crime and Delinquency PASS Awards (2005, 2006) for her reporting on the impact of three strikes sentencing on

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

men, and on the trend toward privatization of the prison system. The magazine was awarded the ''

Utne Reader ''Utne Reader'' (also known as ''Utne'') ( ) is a digital digest that collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment, generally from alternative media sources including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music, and ...

Independent Press Award Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...

for Best Political Coverage in 2006.

Contributors

Two of the magazine's longest-running columns are

Salim Muwakkil Salim Muwakkil (born Alonzo James Cannady, January 20, 1947) is an American journalist and political commentator, based in Chicago. He is a senior editor at '' In These Times magazine'' and an op-ed columnist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Muwakkil ...

's ''The Third Coast'', covering race relations, and

Susan J. Douglas Susan J. Douglas is an American feminist columnist, and cultural critic who writes about gender issues, media criticism and American politics. She has published five books on American history, and is currently Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor ...

's ''Back Talk'', a critical review of the mass media. David Moberg has reported on labor and

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

for the magazine since its inception in 1976. The magazine's editor Joel Bleifuss has written for it since the mid-1980s. More stories from his column, ''The First Stone'', have been included in Project Censored's "Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year" than of any other journalist. Other columnists include H. Candace Gorman, Laura S. Washington and Terry J. Allen. Senior editors include Allen,

Patricia Aufderheide Patricia Ann Aufderheide is a scholar and public intellectual on media and social change, and an expert on fair use in media creation and scholarship. She is a University Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., where she has worked s ...

, Douglas, Moberg, Muwakkil and

David Sirota David J. Sirota (born November 2, 1975) is an American journalist, columnist at ''The Guardian'', editor for '' Jacobin'', author, television writer, and screenwriter. He is also a political commentator and radio host based in Denver. He is a nati ...

. Notable contributors to the magazine have included: *

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

Alexander Cockburn Alexander Claud Cockburn ( ; 6 June 1941 – 21 July 2012) was a Scottish-born Irish-American political journalist and writer. Cockburn was brought up by British parents in Ireland, but lived and worked in the United States from 1972. Together ...

Barbara Ehrenreich Barbara Ehrenreich (, ; ; August 26, 1941 – September 1, 2022) was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and awa ...

Norman Finkelstein Norman Gary Finkelstein (; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a g ...

* Laura Flanders * Annette Fuentes * Juan Gonzalez *

David Graeber David Rolfe Graeber (; February 12, 1961September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books '' Debt: The First 5,000 Years'' (2011) and ''Bullshit Job ...

Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...

* Miles Harvey *

Doug Ireland William Douglas Ireland (March 31, 1946 – October 26, 2013) was an American journalist and blogger who wrote about politics, power, media, and LGBT issues. He was the U.S. correspondent for the French political-investigative weekly Bakch ...

John Judis John B. Judis is an author and American journalist, an editor-at-large at ''Talking Points Memo'', a former senior writer at the ''National Journal'' and a former senior editor at ''The New Republic''. Education Judis was born in Chicago to a ...

Garrison Keillor Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (; born August 7, 1942) is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality. He created the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) show ''A Prairie Home Companion'' (called ''Garrison Keillor's Radi ...

Naomi Klein Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...

* Robert W. McChesney * Rick Perlstein * Jeffrey St. Clair *

Jane Slaughter Jane Slaughter (born January 9, 1949) is an American journalist who writes frequently on labor affairs. Her writing has appeared in ''The Nation'', ''The Progressive'', ''Monthly Review'', and ''In These Times''. She is based in Detroit. Back ...

* James Thindwa * Michael VanRooyen *

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

Joan Walsh Joan Maureen Walsh (born September 18, 1958) is a liberal American political pundit and journalist. Walsh is national affairs correspondent for ''The Nation,'' and was previously an on-air political analyst at CNN and MSNBC. She produced the 2 ...

* Fred Weir *

Paul Wellstone Paul David Wellstone (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002. A ...

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New ...

References

External links

* , the magazine's official website (a portion of its content is available free of charge; yearly subscriptions are available for the full print edition)
Fire on the Prairie

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

(active 2003–2006) with interviews and speeches from progressive leaders {{authority control 1976 establishments in Illinois Alternative magazines Bimonthly magazines published in the United States Monthly magazines published in the United States News magazines published in the United States Political magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1976 Magazines published in Chicago Progressivism in the United States Social democratic organizations Socialism in the United States Socialist magazines

History

Contributors

See also

References

External links