Bullish Ideas in a Bear Market

If you've thumbed through the pages of the Columbia Journalism Review recently and kept alert for the appurtenances of Harvard that pop up all over society, you've probably seen a Harvard Political Review advertisement. And if you read the HPR, you've seen the Columbia Journalism ads there. It's all part of a package deal put together two years ago by some HPR editors in an attempt to break into the national market for political journals. Their attempt failed miserably. In the process, however, they almost implemented a cultural revolution at the Review and left the magazine graphically improved but lacking a sense of identity as well as a financial base.

Labor Pains

The marketeering and promotion gimmicks that typified the HPR in 1974-75 were a far cry from the student activism which spawned the Review in the late 60's. The first issues of the Review, beginning in April 1969, carried cover photographs of students demonstrating against the Vietnam War and against ROTC. The prevailing message of the magazine was anti-war, but a lot of space was also devoted to campus politics.

When the group of editors who ran the Review during this period graduated, the magazine fell into decline, publishing articles almost exclusively from experts in various fields of public policy. That original group of editors had ties to and financial support from the Institute of Politics at Harvard; when the Review was rejuvenated in 1972-73, it was under the editorship of Simeon Kriesberg '73, chairman of the Institute's Student Advisory Council (SAC).

Under Kriesberg, the magazine was completely revised to include many student contributions, staff articles, and outside submissions from freshmen congressmen and Institute Fellows among others. Kriesberg and Gary Meisel '74, SAC members, served terms as editors, and the Student Advisory Committee provided most of the Review's income. But changes were in the wind.

Hot to Trot in a Cultural Revolution

Two years ago were the golden days between Nixon's 1971-72 "garden variety" recession and the unheralded advent of the '74-75 abject slump. Rick Mendelson '75, whom everyone describes as "a very bright and high-powered guy," had just become editor of the Harvard Political Review, bringing with him the seeds of a cultural revolution. Mendelson's predilictions were towards graphics, promotion, and marketing, as were those of his associate editor, Tim Bliss '75. They thought that with a slicker-looking product the Review could appeal to a much wider audience than just the Harvard wastebaskets where it had languished so long.

After one issue in the old style, Mendelson and Bliss approached the Student Advisory Committee, which published the Review, with a package of proposals for wholesale design revamping, trading advertisements with other periodicals, and extended fund-raising. Mendelson asked the SAC for an increased subsidy, anticipating a one- or two-year stimulus which would set the Review firmly on the road to self-sufficiency and entry into the national periodical market. Like a parent putting out those last few thousands of dollars for college, hoping that the degree insures the kid's future, the SAC went along.

First results were positive. Graphically, the magazine shed its basement-mimeograph image. According to Mark J. Saylor '76, who succeeded Mendelson as editor, "Rick had an abiding faith in professionals--that first issue was designed by a student at the Design School (Scott Reid and Associates)--and the cover was drawn by a professional artist in Los Angeles who still does our cover." There were three times as many photographs and illustrations as in the previous issue, and a sharp new logo took its place on a stiff-paper color-coded cover.

Mandelson's fund-raising schemes for '74-75 looked just as promising. With the advice of professionals at the Harvard Development Office and various Institute of Politics contacts, the Review staff came up with a list of 61 potential "very large donors." The plan was to send information packets out to these individuals and to follow up the packets with personal communication. Mendelson expected to raise $10,000 or more a year from this list, enough to cover the Review's total budget, and to begin amassing funds for an extensive subscription drive.

On the marketing and promotion side, ads for such periodicals as the Columbia Journalism Review, The New Republic, The Nation, and Washington Monthly began to appear in the HPR, in exchange for free space in those publications for HPR ads. The number of subscriptions rose from only 20 under the old format to over 200 by February 1976. The staff sent out the large donor packets and waited.

Swamped By the High Seas of Recession

1975 was by no means the best year for an expansion-minded periodical. By January the Nixon/Ford/Arthur Burns recession had burst out full-blown and was still hanging around with lots of its old vigor in December. Even such a sound, conservative, well-connected publication as National Review ran in the red in 1975. The only successful new entrant in the periodical market was the glossy, gossipy, photo-filled People magazine, backed by Time, Inc. Money was tight in 1975.

Of the 61 people on the Harvard Political Review's large donor list, only 24 expressed any further interest after receiving the packet. Of these, three eventually contributed to the Review, for a total of $52,000. As Saylor later wrote in his report on this failure, "Our rate of return was only 5 per cent on a list that cannot possibly be matched for selectivity," and those returns "appear likely to be one-time contributions rather than a continuing commitment."

There was one bright spot on the fundraising scene. After consultation with Marty Peretz of The New Republic and other fundraising wizards, the Review staff set up after Christmas 1974 a "Friends of the Harvard Political Review" program, consisting of mailed issues of the HPR (with letters asking for regular fifteen-to-twenty dollar contributions) to former Fellows of the Institute and people affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government. According to Saylor, "There's been a good response to our first mailings--it looks promising." But even an optimistic estimate of Friends' support amounts to less than 15 per cent of the Review's yearly expenses.

There are two other independent sources for HPR income--subscriptions and advertisements. In some of the pre-cultural revolution issues, there was as much "advertising contributed for the public good" as there were paid ads. This had changed under the new format, but the expanded costs of publishing the new Review more than negate any increase in its advertising space. The income from ads in each issue covers less than a third of its publishing expenses.

As for subscriptions, the only remaining hope for HPR self-sufficiency, the outlook is dim. Despite the tenfold increase in subscriptions, Saylor estimates that for complete independence a subscription increase of over 3000 would be needed. To achieve such an increase, according to Saylor, would involve a mass mailing of over 100,000, the costs of which would be twice the Review's annual budget. After more than 75 years existence, The New Republic has a subscription list of less than 25,000; despite and extensive campaign to increase the list of subscribers, success has been minimal. The New Republic's inability to boost its circulation provides ample evidence of a non-expanding market for political analysis; under such tight conditions, the Review had no choice but to troop back to the Student Advisory Committee and ask for continued subsidization at the '74-75 levels.

Self-Criticism and Revisionist History

In return for assurances of continued SAC support, the committee demanded a detailed accounting of why the Review's expected "take-off" into the national market fizzled. 1975-76 became a time for re-evaluation of the Review by its editors, with some startling conclusions. Incoming Review president George H. White '77 calls Mendelson's and Bliss's conceptions of what it would take to break into the national market "idealistic and unrealistic." "They talked to people over at the Harvard Business Review, and not to other political journals," says White.

Saylor terms the Mendelson period an "identity crisis--we were losing our identity as a political journal." White agrees: "Rick and Tim viewed the Review more as a marketable product than anything else. Their entrepreneurial spirit was permeating the editorial staff." Saylor says that Mendelson and Bliss's pursuit of professional content and production and a firm financial base "soon became transformed into a sort of entrepreneurial game. With all the interest in marketing we kind of lost sight of what kind of magazine we were putting out." Even the SAC had harsh words for Mendelson and Bliss: "Nothing like the optimistic goals that the previous editors had suggested was possible."

Retrenchment

George White believes there's no reason not to have long-range expansion goals. His period of re-evaluation "hasn't made me pessimistic--just made me want to concentrate on the things we're doing well." White includes in his list of positive developments the expanding involvement of members of the Harvard community in all aspects of HPR operations and the "nice balance" of contributions from students on the staff and outside writers, at a ratio of three to two. "The Harvard Political Review isn't a national magazine at all," says White. "It's a forum for political analysis and a service to Harvard students, most of whom don't get much political analysis in whatever newspapers and newsweeklies they read."

The philosophy that Mark Saylor is bequeathing to White is based on the desire to "publish people who wouldn't otherwise be published." Saylor professes an aversion to publishing professors: "They have their own academic journals, and besides, sometimes they give us and Public Interest say, similar articles." Saylor and White are looking first of all for student political writing, and second, for off-beat articles by people who do get published all the time but would never ordinarily write pieces out of their fields. Nieman Fellows are a case in point--James Scudder, a city editor for the Arkansas Democrat, wrote on power vacuums and irresponsibility at Harvard in the HPR last winter.

White looks forward to a time when a large staff will enable the Review to explore new fields and present diverging views on the same issues, as in the most recent HPR when two staffers disagreed about aid to cities. Likewise, in the next issue of the Review, several contributors will react to Martha Gershun's article urging continued and expanded U.S. participation in the United Nations. Another upcoming feature, which White calls "as close as we can get to investigative reporting considering our month-long lead times," is an account of the Howard Hughes/Glomar Explorer affair.

It remained for the old-hand outgoing editor Saylor to add the sobering note: "Really, though, our only general philosophy is just stabilizing the magazine, making sure that we'll be coming out the following year"--and making sure those advertisements stay in the Columbia Journalism Review