Victor Navasky

Publisher Emeritus

Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, was the magazine's editor from 1978 to 1995 and publisher and editorial director from 1995 to 2005. In 1994, while on a year's leave of absence, he served first as a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and then as a senior fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University.

Before coming to The Nation he was an editor at The New York Times Magazine and wrote a monthly column about the publishing business ("In Cold Print") for the New York Times Book Review. He is the author of Kennedy Justice (Atheneum, 1977), the American Book Award winner Naming Names and, most recently, A Matter of Opinion. He is co-author with Christopher Cerf of The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation, now in its second edition.

Navasky has also served as a Guggenheim Fellow, a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and Ferris Visiting Professor of Journalism at Princeton. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities and has contributed articles and reviews to numerous magazines and journals of opinion. He is a graduate of Yale Law School (1959) and Swarthmore College (1954), where he was Phi Beta Kappa with high honors in the social sciences.

In addition to his Nation responsibilities, Navasky is also director of the George Delacorte Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism at Columbia University and a regular commentator on the public radio program Marketplace.

Mr. Navasky, who has three children, lives in New York City with his wife, Anne. He serves on the boards of the Authors Guild, PEN and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Currently

  • Studs

    November 6, 2008

    Remembering our national griot, the bearer of stories of people, ordinary and extraordinary.

  • Paul Newman

    October 1, 2008 Subscribe

    He was funny, he was thoughtful, he was committed and, in the end, he was a friend, period.

  • The Illusory Middle

    August 28, 2008 Subscribe

    Moving to the center to woo undecided voters, Obama risks losing his greatest asset: authenticity.

  • Making History

    August 27, 2008

    Outside the arena, progressives are saying this is a moment of transformational politics. Is the party leadership listening?

  • The Illusory Middle

    August 26, 2008

    Undecided voters don't care about left or right: they simply want a candidate they can trust. As he shifts to the center, Obama risks losing his greatest asset--authenticity.

  • McCain (Mis)Speaks

    May 29, 2008

    How the Senator won the war of words on Iraq again and again and again.

  • The Experts Speak on Iraq

    March 17, 2008

    To mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, some daily inspiration from the experts who led us there.

  • Who Said the War Would Pay for Itself? They Did!

    March 13, 2008 Subscribe

    Unwise words from the "experts" who promised a cost-free war.

  • Fourteen Little Words

    February 21, 2008

    First Amendment biographer Anthony Lewis brings glad tidings: despite Bush, US commitment to free speech "is no longer in doubt."

2007

  • Hiss In History

    April 18, 2007 Subscribe

    Although many historians have condemned Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy, the facts of his story remain obscure.

  • Hiss in History

    April 12, 2007

    Although many historians have condemned Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy, the facts of his story remain obscure.

  • Schlesinger & The Nation

    March 8, 2007 Subscribe

    Remembering an eminent activist historian whose passing has left the public sphere much poorer.

  • Mission to Caracas

    February 14, 2007 Subscribe

    Hugo Chávez's critics may mock his ideas of twenty-first-century socialism as empty rhetoric. Perhaps it's more like magical realism--still a fiction, but one to be nourished as a realizable ideal.

  • Ford, Nixon, The Nation

    January 4, 2007 Subscribe

    The story behind the story of Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon.

2006

  • Leap into the Fray

    May 30, 2006

    The new generation of academics and scholars is challenged to join, elevate and improve the national conversation and persuade the public to come back to politics.

2005

  • Letter from the (Outgoing) Publisher

    November 10, 2005 Subscribe

    As Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel becomes the latest in a long line of publisher/owners of The Nation, Victor Navasky looks ahead to his new role as publisher emeritus and member of the magazine's editorial board.

  • State of the Magazines

    October 26, 2005 Subscribe

    On both sides of the Atlantic, liberal news magazines facing declining circulation have started to play into the celebrity culture. But there are gems that have the power to carry our culture through its Las Vegas-ization.

  • The Rights of Journalists

    July 14, 2005 Subscribe

    What's necessary to protect reporters' sources and the public's need to know?

  • Deep Threat

    June 9, 2005

    Speculation about Deep Throat is a distraction from the threat of illegal government surveillance.

  • Protest and Survive

    April 28, 2005

    Thoughts on the critical role of the journal of dissent in America.

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1997

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Podcast

RadioNation with Laura Flanders, 12/1/08
This week: Imagining a new new deal, with Howard Zinn, Frances Moore Lappe, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Eric Schlosser and...FDR himself. Plus: Ennis Carter and Stephen Duncombe on the political propaganda legacy of the WPA. (13mb mp3)

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