21!

Check out this list of "The 50 Best Magazines" in today's Chicago Tribune, as selected by the newspaper's staffers.

We're thrilled to report that Reason comes in at 21, just below Details and above Consumer Reports.

Dubbed a monthly for libertarians ("free minds and free markets"), it's not surprising that Reason has a small list of subscribers. But this magazine does everything well: culture, politics, religion, philosophy, and while other mags redesign to simplify and commercialize, Reason's redesign actually made it better.

Thanks to all of you who subscribe to our print edition for helping to make it a success! (At almost 60,000, the readership ain't that small.)

And if you don't subscribe to Reason, what better time than now to give it a try?

Comments

[erf]

Can we get a registration if you are going to link to articles requiring it? Or would be sharing a reg be to "collectivist" for the Reason crew?

[jacob]

the fact that they failed to include the economist and new york review of books (i think that counts as a magazine, its not really a newspaper) kinda discredits them thoguh i was happy to see reason & the New Yorker there.

[Rick Barton]

erf wrote:
"Can we get a registration if you are going to link to articles requiring it?..."

Not hard to register for the ChiTrib. and when you do they take you to the "rankings" article. Also, I should have said that Reason may help save us from the "collectivist barbarity of the wellfare-warfare state.

[Mike Van Winkle]

It is possible that they left the economist off because it is not a US publication...but a British one. They don't make it clear that nationality is a criterion, but it's possible. Of course it is also possible that tribune staffers don't read one of the finest magazines on the planet. As a tribune reader, I just hope the latter is not the case.

[Anonymous]

But will Reason save us from anymore hokey libertarian cliches from the like of Rick Barton?

We can only hope!

[Anonymous]

But will Reason save us from anymore hokey libertarian cliches from the likes of Rick Barton?

We can only hope!

[James B.]

I am happy Reason made the list, but look at some of the others Time ugh! People eech! What possible criteria could they be using?

[DRT]

The list includes some other British magazines (Q, Granta, etc.), so who knows what's up with the Economist not being there.

[Rick Barton]

The collectivist barbarity of the wellfare-warfare state is hardly a "libertarian cliche" (not to mention "hokey") but rather, realpolitic.

"Capitalism is freedom!" Hmmm.. I was going to say
that was a libertarian cliche but it's also more of a truism. Of course "truisms" and "cliches" needn't be mutually exclusive and I would guess for the libertarian variety, they most often are not...How about "Power to the Individual!" Yes that will do. And, since it's not a declarative statement, it can't be a truism.

[Heather]

I was surprised that Mother Jones didn't make the list.

[Anonymous]

Mother Jones SUCKS. I thought, oh cool, I'll get a magazine that writes about corporate corruption. But it's so damn boring.

Plus, they sell their lists to EVERYONE. I get crap from Jim Hightower, from Tom Daschle, from Ted Kennedy, from Molly Ivins, from the Washington Monthly, from etc. From the DNC and Terry McAuliffe (sp?)

[dddd]

Mother Jones SUCKS. I thought, oh cool, I'll get a magazine that writes about corporate corruption. But it's so damn boring.

Plus, they sell their lists to EVERYONE. I get crap from Jim Hightower, from Tom Daschle, from Ted Kennedy, from Molly Ivins, from the Washington Monthly, from etc. From the DNC and Terry McAuliffe (sp?)

[Kevin Carson]

DDDD:

I got my gut full of Mojo when they defended foreign wars like Kosovo when "progressives" were doing it. And most of their issues were taken up, not by stuff on corporate/state criminals, but by lifestyle crap and picking on gun owners.

If I wanted a bunch of middle of the road shit by tampon-brained liberals, I'd listen to NPR.

[David 2]

Well as one who has been a subscriber of the print edition for the past few years, you're very welcome!

Of course the only reason why I subscribed is because the local bookstores wouldn't carry the print version. I guess it's because Reason doesn't have enough angels or baked foods on the cover.

Still, nice to see the Trib scribe good words about the magazine.

[WLC]

Your new subscriber looks forward to his first issue--where he can have a smoke and a beer while reading it 😉

[ABC]

Reason is a great magazine. I like what's been done in the last couple of years with the cultural emphasis. The Suck-ification has been a good move! Sullum, Walker, Freund, etc.

[Madog]

Now you just need to get Yale's library to carry the magazine. They have every left-leaning magazine from Earth First! to the Progressive, but not Reason. (The have the Economist, but it's not on the shelves, you have to ask for it. Too many people were stealing it.)

[Pedro]

Just wanted to make a note, in case anyone at Reason is reading; I stopped my subscription, because in Canada, at least, I had read most of the articles on-line before the magazine ever got to me.

PS - Thanks for the 4 free (this is your last issue!) issues after I stopped. 🙂

[Russ]

Nice to see #48 spelled wrong. TWICE!

It's spelled wrong in the print edition, too.

[MS]

Speaking of The Economist - its not even on their list.....

They really consider Time to better than The Economist??

[Since 1972]

Well, Pedro. Sorry to disappoint you, but you do NOT read most of the articles on-line before the magazine ever gets to you. You're missing about 60% of what's in the mag.

For example, online you don't get "Balance Sheet," "Citings," more extensive "Brickbats", noteworthy book reviews, considerably more feature-length articles, Freund's perceptive "Artifacts", some great ads, and let's not forget "Letters to the Editor" (some of which are quite insightful.) Ain't that right, Alissi.

By the way, how come you get to do the congratulatory honors here instead of Gillespie? Is there mayhaps some sort of changing-of-the-guard going on at Reason?

Anyway, congrats at being #21.

P.S. I know I'm dating myself, but it's an honor to have known you guys ever since Robert Poole began this enterprise.

P.P.S. Pedro -- a buddy and I once saw a billboard that said, "DRINK CANADA DRY". So we went up there and did. (Groan)

[Ex-magaziner]

Sorry to disappoint YOU, Mr. 1972, but Reason magazine did itself a great disservice when the publisher decided to embellish its once-great slick with fancy-smancy new graphics.

I'm familiar with the fastidiousness of spelling the magazine's name with a lower-case "r", but why, in heaven's name, insist on that policy when the name is at the beginning of a sentence of an article?

Some of the other things that have been bothering me ever since reason hired their new art director, are as follows:

Why print page numbers near the magazine's spine instead of the more logical placement near the outer edge of each page. So annoying!

Furthermore, most of the time one can't tell where one article ends and the next one begins -- due to the small font that now passes for headers.

And then, those insipidly pale colors ? sheesh! What are we? Back in third grade? Give us back those bold, black fonts for headers that clearly announce the start of a new article, or don't bother printing headers all.

I did not subscribe to reason to drool over cutesy graphics. I bought the magazine for its ideas and as they inspire my own thoughts. I don't know what goes through the mind of the new designer reason hired, but he or she obviously wants to be different.

Reason magazine usually has some well-thought-out articles, but I can't be bothered with having to wade through generation-X nouveau graphics, hidden page numbers, buried article titles, and other such game-playing.

Being different just for the sake of being different is fine, but not when it deliberately hampers or obstructs the reader's flow of thought. In my estimation, that's downright ornery.

It is these, and other such stylistic changes to the magazine that cause unnecessary bumps in one's reading flow, and which has irked me to the point of dropping my subscription.

Maybe I'll resubscribe in a couple of years (maybe) when the decision-makers at reason have seen the errors of their ways and have hired a new art director.

If your publication found other subscribers similarly dropping out - but without any explanations - you might at least appreciate that you got feedback from me. And I know that feedback happens to be a valuable commodity in the marketplace.

As a long-time subscriber (since 1976) I bothered writing at all because I've always respected the magazine's thought content, if that's any consolation.

[dude]

I don't see Juggs anywhere on this list.

[Anonymous]

did New Criterion make it? don't feel like registering but New Criterion is better than most magazines around, despite its conservative slant.

[Rick Barton]

Another way to support Reason is to buy it at book stores or newstands and never miss an issue. Sometimes I find a bookstore that doesn't carry Reason, so I request that they do, and when they get in in I buy an issue. Kind of gets the ball rolling. Of course it's cheaper to just subscribe. Which ever, Reason is a fun way to help save our republic from collectivist barbarity.

[Jim]

What Ex-magaziner said about the graphics. Black on white is used as widely as it it is because it is easy to read. The whole magazine has become a squintfest. And those back-of-the-book articles that run in one column, continued in one column, continued in one more column -- just make you want to say "auggh!" I'm still a subscriber, but I sure would like a return to readability.

[Bill]

I'm a long-time subscriber who still really likes the magazine, but I liked it more when Virginia Postrell was EIC. I agree with Ex-magaziner and Jim about the very annoying changes in graphics.

[sortof]

Could anyone post the whole thing for those of us too lazy to register at the site? By the way, did Fortean Times make it?