Talk:The American Spectator

Untitled
KevinOKeeffe (talk) 12:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know if there's any connection between the American Spectator and Britain's The Spectator? They're both conservative political magazines and the mastheads shown in the illustrations for the two articles are near-identical. -JdSf

There is no connection other than the name (and some contributors in common).68.84.128.134 14:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Well there's also the striking similarity of the logos. 86.163.2.108 (talk) 20:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Patrick Howley Agent Provocateur at OWS

 * American Spectator Editor Admits to Being Agent Provocateur at D.C. Museum.84.152.35.49 (talk) 23:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * So what? firedoglake.com, along with three of the periodicals cited as criticizing Howley's report of the "protest against American imperialism" at the National Air and Space Museum (The Guardian, The Economist, and The Atlantic Monthly) are all known for their own leftward editorial slant when reporting on political developments (that's a masterpiece of understatement  in the case of firedoglake.com).  In fact, I added reference to that fact to make this article more NPOV; the only real alternative would have been to either radically redact or eliminate reference to the Howley article altogether, as it presents criticism of The American Spectator without the necessary context of the political stance of the periodicals making the criticism.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a political pamphlet. If squabbles between two political wings of journalism are to be presented in a Wikipedia article, they ought to be presented as such, not as disinterested criticism of the American Spectator article from the standpoint of commentators in magazines not themselves actively engaged reporting from an opposed political slant.  And if my changes are reverted, I am prepared to follow Wikipedia's institutional procedures to prevent Wikipedia from being used as a political soapbox for a single political viewpoint.loupgarous (talk) 05:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Real age of magazine?
I have not found any evidence, other than the magazine's own assertion, that it dates back to 1924. One of the credited founders, George Nathan, was a founder of the 1932 literary magazine. I have not been able to find any credit to Truman Newberry for the magazine, nor have I found any library holdings of the American Spectator (that's not the 1932-1937 literary magazine) in WorldCat prior to 1967, the start of The Alternative in Bloomington (where it looks like Emmett Tyrrell lived).

In the book "Watch on the Right: Conservative Intellectuals in the Reagan Era", J. David Hoeveler writes "The journal celebrated its hedonistic roots: it claimed to have been 'founded in 1924 by George Nathan and Truman Newberry over a cheap domestic ale in McSorley's Old Ale House.' But the genealogical connection was of course only nominal.  When began in 1967 as the Alternative became in 1976 the American Spectator." I wouldn't necessarily take Hoeveler as the last word, but if no one can turn up an actual issue of the American Spectator (that's not the 1930s literary magazine) prior to 1967, we may want to revise the article to use that date. JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 13:34, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Verification that AmSpec was founded in 1967, not 1924
I have been a reader of "The Alternative: An American Spectator" almost since its founding. There was no American Spectator between the 1930s (before I was born) and 1967 when Tyrrell and some friends founded the new magazine. The name was in honor and admiration of the old magazine but there is no ownership or editorial connection. It is as if I started a new magazine called The American Mercury. Nobody can stop me, since the trademark has long since expired, but it would not be a revival or continuation of the old American Mercury. And someone has done exactly that with The Smart Set, https://www.thesmartset.com. 24.13.83.67 (talk) 10:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Larry Siegel

Neutrality
I came to this article to learn more about this publication and its editorial stances. Some of the wording seemed non-neutral by WP standards. For instance in the 1990s section: "The March 1992 issue contained David Brock's smear of Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill." Maybe David Brock smeared Anita Hill, maybe he didn't -- it's not WP's role to choose the word "smear". I noticed similar language elsewhere.

I'd fix but I'm at work. --166.82.104.11 (talk) 18:47, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Considering that the subject is a conservative publication and this is far-left Wikipedia, the wording is actually more neutral than one would expect. 173.68.127.11 (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Name
Is there evidence the name was independently derived? The (British) Spectator was famous for a century before the American Spectator, especially among journalists. Given the similarities, they'd have had to be entirely ignorant of the British press for the name to be unrelated, even if the magazine itself is unrelated, and it follows the pattern of the ASPCA, ABC etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harsimaja (talk • contribs) 12:41, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup needed
This article reads like a promotional essay; not very encyclopedic. Includes peacock words/phrases such as: prominent, explosive growth, provocative reports, incurred the displeasure of, internal strife. There are huge swaths of the article which contain no citations. There is heavy name-dropping with 40 writers for the magazine mentioned in the lead section alone (using up 6 of the 20 citations as primary sources). 13 of the 20 citations in the references section are from the subject's own website, spectator.org. Article needs some serious spring cleaning. Grorp (talk) 07:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)