Defining what we do and why we do it

Years ago, I was asked by management consultants to describe what a Publisher did. Perhaps I should have thought about the question harder but in those days it was part of our job to be contemptuous of people with laptops. Parking my Irish antipathy towards process, experience has taught me that the plodders and plotters often end up winning. Some form of structured thinking is invariably better than none, especially when the goal is to create the world's leading tool for thought leaders.

So Prospect Magazine is going to get very serious for a minute, and I'm asking everyone with an interest in trying to make a thing of intellectual beauty even more beautiful to help. In my view, the best people to help with this task are aspirant or actual thought leaders themselves - which means you. So I would appreciate your help and input.

Start by going to www.prospect-magazine.co.uk, if you haven't been there already. Take a look at what we're trying to do. Then tell me what you think of it, (which includes whether it's apparent that we're doing anything tangible at all) or suggest what we should be doing to make it better. I'll start a formal survey on the website itelf later, but let's try and start with an intelligent conversation and see if it goes anywhere sensible . . .

Someone's got to start, so at the risk of alienating those who believe that 'mission statements' are the stuff of David Brent, or New Labour (which includes David Cameron), here is a stab at a description of why we're publishing Prospect Magazine:

“To dig below the surface of everyday understanding, expose the roots of inspired thinking and stimulate intelligent debate for those who aspire to form opinions as opposed to accepting received dogma.”

Is this a realistic ambition? Does Prospect or any other publication get close to doing this? Do you think people want to think for themselves or do they prefer their thinking to be facilitated?

Let's start with these topics and move on when we're bored. I promise that your views will form a part of the exercise we're undertaking to make Prospect Magazine the world's most deadly weapon against institutionalised ignorance.

Please feel free to keep your identity secret but indicate whether you are a Prospect subscriber, writer, admirer or hater. All views are valid, but no xxxxx swearing or senseless cruelty, please. And no management consultants in any shape or form.

John

Comments

[Nick Gardner]

Lord Rutherford dismissed talk of nuclear power as "moonshine". Lord Kelvin thought X-rays would turn out to be a hoax. The founder of IBM forecast the world market for computers as 5.
Asking even the most eminent authorities for off-the-cuff forecasts is worse than a waste of time. Gullible people could be misled. For the rest of us it throws some light upon the forecasters and none upon the future.

[Jim Grove]

One of the attractive features of Prospect is the wide range of topics embraced. I think it unlikely that you need to look for new ones. But there are lacunae in the great patchwork of ideas one finds in Prospect, or indeed in other thoughtful periodicals. The one that bothers me most is housing policy. I have never heard Tony Blair speak the word “housing” though I have been listening for ten years. In 2002, New Labour achieved the smallest number of new house starts for 70 years excluding the 4 years of the war; which puts our leader in the same bag with Hermann Goering. The ramp of house prices, resulting from shortage, has skewed the economy and bears hardest on the underclass. It is a major public disgrace. John Prescott tried to do something but they just laugh at him. It was not so in the days of Richard Crossman. There are wider issues of the built environment in our own land that lie neglected. The school-building programme is so big that building contractors cannot cope and nor can the local authorities, whilst house-building is practically limited to urban sites due to the evil empire of NIMBYs lead by the Council for the Protection of Rural England, which (because of its name) some people even take to be a virtuous body. The New Towns Act is still on the Statute Book but that would require political courage. There is much more to be dragged out into the light.
I suggest Peter Hall or David Lock at the Town & Country Planning Association (or perhaps their nominee) should be asked to contribute a piece on a topic of their choice. There is ample material for a regular one-page of the kind that has been commended by other bloggers (and by me). Read David Lock’s regular piece, “Off the Fence” in the journal Town & Country Planning. (I admit David is an old pal of mine, though I haven’t seen him in years).
It seems to me that our physical surroundings and their socio/economic and administrative/political causes rank low in the republic of ideas. Even religion gets more attention. I suppose transport is an exception, being treated as a branch of economics and a matter of daily concern to journalists who live on the Northern Line.
Sorry about this, but I read that blogs are the place for hobby-horses.

[Nick Gardner]

I greatly admire Prospect, but with one moderately important qualification. It is that nearly all of its contributors seem to be professional writers or politicians. I should expect most of them to be, but I should happier if there were more contributions from other callings. To judge from what appears in Scientific American, there are many scientists who are willing and able to write absorbing articles about their work in non-technical language. I suspect that to be true of other professions. Have you considered inviting contributions from subscribers?

PS Note to John Kelly (not for publication)
John
I much appreciated your reply to my comment, but I could not find the comment itself. Was I not looking in the right place?
Nick

[Owen McShane]

A magazine worth subscribing to is its own "mission statement".

Is it elitist?
I hope so. I would hardly want to read anything vulgar.

[Memo Spathis]

You've had a good response, covering a wide field. Rather than repeat the many comments I agree with and publicly disagree with the others, may I make just two points?

1. It's clear that it is the stimulation of the discussion and the challenge of the ideas that people find attractive: make sure that that you keep a broad base, and continue to promote conflicting views and insist on an open mind from your readers (at least while they are actually reading Prospect).

2. Please maintain a clearer distinction between depth of thought in an article and its length. Occasionally authors write on as if they had to fill the whole page, even when all that needs to be said has been. A few others have succumbed to the 'word processor' syndrome, where the ease of discourse has replaced the rigour of succinct composition (a trap only too easy to fall into, and which needs a compassionate editor to pull you out off).

[wonderfulforhisage]

"All views are valid, but no xxxxx swearing or senseless cruelty, please. And no management consultants in any shape or form."

Control freakery rules, ok.

Still, the house style should resonate well with Gordon's when he moves abode.

[Sean Swan]

"To dig below the surface of everyday understanding, expose the roots of inspired thinking and stimulate intelligent debate for those who aspire to form opinions as opposed to accepting received dogma.”

Perhaps in order to do this you will need to be prepared to be a little controversial and to allow a lot of debate and polemic articles. Which is not to say that you don't already do so..
Incidentally, why are some many posters Irish? And can I use that observation to publicise my book? Check it out here http://www.lulu.com/content/600047

Thanks

[Stephen Henderson]

Hello
I have been a subscriber for about 4 years. In that time I have given up on reading the Guardian, Times, and Independent as their comment sections have overgrown their news. I like the phrase 'viewspapers' used above. Now I read the hard liberal mildly rightwing Economist for news and the soft-liberal mildly-lefty Prospect for commentary and ideas.
The heart of the publication is the essays. I enjoy those which offer contrary views or equivocations to received opinion. A couple of examples stand out: one a short opinion on the slowing of social mobility and two the article on British ancestry.
The article which give an inside view of public institutions such as criminal law, schools and hospitals are welcome too. The debates are sometime excellent and sometimes not. Will Hutton and Lord Desai was like the fight between the shark and the bear.
Prospect is at its best when it cuts through the polarised views that are typical of British newspapers. The article on south american populism was the first to accurately characterise the Chavez regime and was later much copied.

However the most refreshing thing about prospect is that it is totally lacking in the cant, cynicism, outrage and glib moralising that we get in-- well most other broadsheets and news magazines.

The aim of Prospect should be to continue to give a broader studied view of foreign lands, to give an inside view of our own institutions, to challenge popular misconceptions, to reassess our history and great thinkers and above all avoid sneering jeremiads.

[Jim Grove]

On the matter of élites, the various contributions provoke me to comment. Elitism is perceived by those who feel excluded, rarely by those who belong. Edward Harkins’ piece (12.01) is an example. I too hate a few élites from which I feel excluded. But prospect can hardly be described as élitist: it is a journal of opinion from which, so far as I know, there is no area of opinion that would be excluded. If someone writes a thoughtful and original piece on football or the BNP (or perhaps life working on the Underground) I suppose it would appear – and no doubt provoke a lively reaction. Someone might say that a body of people who value ideas and skilful writing can be called an “intelligentsia” and therefore an élite, but they would be mistaken if there is no device for exclusion. Mensa is élitist, using an IQ test to guard the gate. The IQ test is a grotesque, unscientific device created by those who would pass it to exclude those who believe they would not (though most of them could with the right preparation). There are several kinds of intelligence not encompassed by the standard IQ test and it cannot recognise wisdom. Now there is a piece of élitism worth the hatred. Prospect cannot be accused of this. It has even contained the odd jewel of wisdom. But that must be a matter of opinion.

[John Boyce]

I have been a subscriber and reader of Prospect since the very first issue which I heard about in a newspaper article. I usually greatly enjoy somewhere between half and two thirds of the magazine and find the range of articles and quality of the writing and the debate excellent and almost unavailable elsewhere at least in such a regularly packaged form.

If I have any niggle it would be in connection with your arts coverage which, with the exception of Edinburgh in Festival mode rarely extends beyond the M25. If you discuss other arts events they are often elsewhere in Europe rather than elsewhere in the UK. There are theatres and galleries in the North and in Scotland which put on productions and exhibitions which are often quite exceptional. Most recently for example many of the productions created by the virtual National Theatre of Scotland have been excellent.

I do appreciate that Prospect has an international readership and welcome coverage of issues across the globe however I would prefer to hear of arts opportunities that a UK reader of modest means might have some chance of attending. Other global arts coverage should be for events which have some worldwide significance.

Anyway keep up the good work and long may you continue to prosper.

[Jim Grove]

Great discussion going on! It seems to me the key to Prospect's excellence is the character of the editorial team. This is a fairly unique journal because a few people (perhaps mostly one person) have decided to do this thing. It strikes a chord with the rest of us but it is difficult to say why. I like it all, including the bits I don't like because I am a pluralist. (I like the fiction even, though I think the selection erratic). So my mission statement would be: keep the editorial team together for ten years; keep the budget low, few advertisements and the publisher further than arms-length away. That would be a long life. The trajectory of most good teams has begun to droop sooner than that. Perhaps Prospect would then become like the Spectator for the next 150 years.

[John]

I am a subscriber. I like Prospect, but not as much as I think I should or could. I applaud its ambition, as I take it, to promote rigorous and informed debate about urgent current issues. But I wish it wasn't so earnest (your word) and sometimes self-satisfied (a word that occurs elsewhere in these comments). I don't have a problem with an intellectual elite. That's what public intellectuals are for, isn't it? But I do have a problem when they lack lightness of touch and seem to overestimate their own influence. Ditch the fiction, widen your contributor base and please do something about your cartoons. For me they are almost all unfunny.

[David Pelta]

I am delighted that you have started a blog. I am a busy professional and tend to buy a copy of prospect to read on holiday. I look at the web site occasionally and dip into articles.
To me the articles are thoughtful; 'correct currentleft wing'. which may not be my style but are often worth reading. I'm sure that more open debate would be beneficial to many readers; particularly as there seems to be a current impasse in much political thinking. I,m sure that most of us appreciate the current comfortable economic situation that we live in but are we pleased with the future that we offer our children? Are we happy with what passes for democracy?. Do we have role figures (outside pop culture or sport)that we can admire.?
Maybe these are hacknied statements but I feel they need debating.
How about it prospect blog.

[Garreth Byrne]

I have read Prospect since 2001. I subscribed for a few years, went abroad and returned, then began to buy it occasionally. Prospect should always aim to provoke thought, especially among those already committed to certain cultural, religious and political views. People who read a lot but don't earn their money in the academy or the upper echelons of the public service can be contributors. The essay as a literary form has a noble history in Britain and France especially. Prospect caters for the longer piece, but the literary turgidity of the academic paper is avoided, with its jargon and footnotes and select bibliography. Two twentieth essayists who excelled outside the restrictions of the academy were George Orwell and Edmund Wilson. I would also mention the French essayist (Ni victimes ni burreaux etc.)Albert Camus. The essay can be about every subject, from the serious to the frivolous. Let well-honed reflective essays be the special forte of Prospect. One suggestion, about published letters. Sometimes a letter you receive might contain original ideas and viewpoint. If you think so, why not ask selected letter writers to expand into short articles? This would facilitate constructive reader participation in Prospect. Oh, and as an Irishman may I ask you to refrain from such frequent attention to British domestic politics, which can become tedious? Like Wesley the world should remain your parish.

[A Younger Readership]

A second suggestion.

Would it be possible for you to create a suggestions section to this blog where we could suggest article topics for the next edition? You could run a quick poll or just pick the ideas that interest you most? I for one would be interested to know what Prospect readers would like to know more about.

[Fiona B]

I would question John Kelly's statement that 'talk of money is vulgar'! Only in some cultures, surely! I once had an amusing conversation with an Iranian businessman who'd been living in the UK for the last 25 years. He pointed out the misunderstanding that can arise if a successful English businessman talks to his Iranian equivalent. If the Englishman follows his own cultural rules, he will underplay his achievements - particularly in the area of money. After all, it would be vulgar to do otherwise... It would be a grave mistake, however, to follow this rule in Iran. This is because in Iran, the opposite rules apply. You are expected to wildly exaggerate your success. Everyone, of course, will completely understand that you are exaggerating, and will not be surprised to find that your real achievements are rather more modest. The Englishman who does not understand this is likely to misjudge the Iranian as arrogantly inflated - the Iranian, on the other hand, if he is ignorant of English cultural rules, is likely to assume that the Englishman is a complete failure....

[A Younger Readership]

I have subscribed to Prospect for a number of years and use it when teaching current affairs to state-sector secondary school children. My sixth-formers are amazed that people read articles longer than one page especially when, as one student put it "they don't even have any photos".
I doubt most would read it through choice but many of the articles do, with the right introduction, catch their attention. While they probably aren't your target readership and do sometimes struggle with the more obscure vocabulary, Prospect is certainly not too 'elite' for them. In fact, the best articles, by treating a subject in depth, make it more accessible to students who may have little background knowledge of a topic.
Your facts box is usually the favourite section and never fails to provoke discussion.

[artHarris]

I have been a subscriber for about 5 years, and Prospect is the only magazine I keep. I read almost everything except the fiction, because it is always thought provoking, well aimed at the thinking audience and informative. That said, I can see several ways in which Prospect could better serve the audience I believe it serves.
Prospect debates are a great idea, but seldom do they convince. I don't recall a single instant where a participant has changed his mind. This suggests that the participants are being rather dogmatic, rather than open to new ways of looking at the subject, which is surely the way the readers are approaching the debate.
Several bloggers have asked for a way to contribute in response to articles which animate them - I agree that this would allow a wider understanding of subject, especially those where the author has been particularly provokactive or polarised. Obviously this would increase the editorial workload significantly, but would surely make for a more satisfied readership. Perhaps each article could offer its own blog space.
Also previously mentioned is the fee required to access the Archive; I agree that this should be available without charge to subscribers. It should also be fully searchable - even though I keep my past copies, finding an article more than a couple of months old is extremely time consuming.

[edward harkins]

My inclination on the elitism question is to discount it on the grounds that most people who throw this barb have no or little understanding about what it actually means. Such people often confuse elitism with minority, or exclusive or even clique. Elitism is often used today in the same way as fascism – by people who have not experienced the real thing, or bothered to properly read or otherwise learn about it. It is then used as an ill-informed and prejudicial insult against a group or organisation that the accuser feels somehow oppressed or excluded by and, worse, that they do not belong to.

An elite, to be an elite, needs power, goals (or at least shared and excluding values), organization, hierarchy, focus, cohesiveness, coherence. Now John, I don’t want to belittle Prospect, but I don’t think it has all or most of these elements (or maybe there’s something you should be telling us?).

Even if an accuser does understand the notion of elitism and correctly uses it as an accusation - so what? Elites do exist and have always existed. Either one accepts it or not. Moreover, I’ve watched throughout my life the decline of various hierarchies of elites and I now very much doubt that this has been an altogether good thing. Local (in many senses) elites can provide guidance, exemplars, appropriate taboos and support in times of angst and drift.

I recall a few years ago revisiting the vast, deprived local authority housing estate I grew up in when it was newly build and still affluent from the nearby mature heavy manufacturing industry. In my truculent adolescent years I rebelled against the unblinking elitism and hierarchy of the local Roman Catholic church. I saw this all as oppressive in terms of class, community and even spirituality.

On my recent return I found the secular almost totally triumphant. The local and much diminished congregation was starved from a parish priest, two juniors and nuns, to one forlorn priest and a housekeeper.

But what I also saw all around were the symptoms of an urban society in utter decay – unemployment, illicit drugs and associated gangsterism, economic and cultural poverty, environmental injustice and third world levels of life expectancy. I think at that point if I could have re-installed the old local elite of working class Roman Catholism for the drifting and spiritless population adrift on that estate I would have done so.

A defining feature at the end of the last century, and the start of this one, is the rise and rise of the plutocracy as thee elite. We are all reminded of this by the endless mindlessness that is the celeb culture. Even at the popular daytime TV level we have house make-over, ‘antique’ dealing, buying property abroad, all feeding the foothills of the plutocracy.

If Prospect be an elite just get on with it – a lot of us don’t want to end up adrift in a spiritless culture and we’re quite glad for what flotsam comes along and helps keep us afloat.

[Carl Pheasey]

I am a subsciber.

I agree with commenters who have suggested that the fiction element of the magazine is not its biggest selling point: it is the only section I routinely skip without even looking at. I am a huge fan of the portraits, book reviews, and debates. Also, the now presumably defunct Notes from Underground was consistently entertaining, even for this non-London reader.

The quality of the writing, and the openess to the full (or near full) range of view is the important thing to me. The occasionally self-satisfied emphasis on being "intellectual" turns me off. The best pieces in Prospect are emphatically not "intellectual": that is they are written by specialists, not usually by generalists with a hobby horse. The best examples of this are the regular columnists, each with a special area of interest, and extended pieces by people like Dick Taverne on climate change or Ikenberry (if memory serves) on international relations.

Prospect is a great read, and I am frankly not that interested in a mission statement, Just stick to what you're good at.

[Steve Fuller]

I have no big complaints about Prospect, which I buy nearly every month from a newsagent, usually when I’m travelling. However, I think it suffers from a lack of competitors in the UK market. As it result, it really tries to do too many things at once, which makes the magazine appear too busy – dipping into things, here and there, without much consequence. This is especially frustrating in the case of book reviews, where it would be nice to see more than two per issue – and one of them NOT be about/by some liberal stalwart.

When compared with the US, the UK idea-based magazine market tends to be more polarised ideologically. Prospect, I suppose, is designed to be officially neutral, much in the spirit of Harper’s or Atlantic in the US. But in the UK, this leaves Prospect pretty much standing on its own with no clear market boundaries. People who want their ideology more straight-up will go to Spectator or New Statesman. The two US magazines, in contrast, have raised their game as they have competed against each other. At this point, Prospect’s image is blurry – except that it’s mildly contrarian and mildly liberal and pretty expensive! It is possible to be non-partisan and still have a sharp image, but it probably requires competition.

I also think Prospect would do well by encouraging people to write on topics where they might otherwise remain tactful. For example, the ‘most overrated books’ in the current issue was truly enlightening as a marker of our times that might otherwise go unnoticed. Perhaps another way to put this is to get people to express themselves outside their ‘comfort zone’. An article on science’s public relations disasters – especially ongoing ones – by someone who normally boosts science would be a case in point. I have seen this approach used in several articles over the years, and it can be really quite thought-provoking.

[Kevin A]

I am a regular to the website and an occasional hard copy buyer.

I like this blog idea; although new to participation in blogs I enjoy the immediacy and informality, which sometimes leads to more acute and candid views being expressed.

The mission “To dig below the surface of everyday understanding, expose the roots of inspired thinking and stimulate intelligent debate for those who aspire to form opinions as opposed to accepting received dogma.” is a good start, but i think something needs to be explicitly included which asserts that it will pursue truth without fear or favour and demand free speech, which is clearly something the goverment is on a mission to deprive us of. I cite recent measures which have been taken to protect "vulnerable" groups, with the right intentions but the wrong effects.
I think Prospect should stand up foir the rights of lunatics like David Irvine to spout his nonsense; likewise the mad mullahs should be free to speak, as long as they aren't threatening violence or carnage; only by airing such views and causing raw debates will mature truth emerge. Likewise, the territory of the intellectual debate should not be dominated by the left (if such a quaint concept still exists) as, by definition, any "wing" is off-centre.
Good luck with the new venture.

[Gregory Leadbetter]

I think Prospect is doing an invaulable job, largely because it unashamedly sets out to plug a cultural gap: that of public intellectual debate. In this respect, it's pretty much on the right track - by which I mean it has the right emphasis and sensitivity to current affairs and the need to contextualise them historically and globally.

I agree that this does not require frequent editorial re-assertion (at least in public), which some may see as 'back-slapping', but the editorial team are right to have an appropriate sense of what they doing in the cultural life of Britain, and, by extension, the anglophone world.

The question of 'elitism' is an important one. This word is often used very vaguely, to denote some presumed exclusion from a clique, the self-appointed 'elite'. But, leaving that usage aside for a moment, I would like to suggest a redeemed use of the word. All cultural expression tends to the creation of 'elites' - those either seen as most worthy, or treated as such. We need to recognise that we can't avoid discrimination - that is, a choosing-between - but we can avoid discrimation on false or harmful grounds. In other words, it is not the idea of an 'elite' that is the problem - it is the grounds on which that 'elite' is regarded as such. We need to discriminate 'good' from 'bad' - it's the basis of that discrimiation that is important.

Prsopect, on this view, is engaged in the right kind of elitism - that of throwing open a public debate on what the human 'elite' should be (which can never be settled, of course: it is necessarily fluid, subject to challenge and change from within and without), while paying proper attention to the grounds on which we make our choices - the method(s) of our choosing.

E.M.Forster put it well, I think, in his essay 'What I Believe', which includes the following:

'I believe in aristocracy, though - if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages...They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory...over cruelty and chaos...They are sensitive for others as well as themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke...and all attempts to organize them fail.'

Could I also put in a plea for the fiction section. I am happy to stick my neck out and say that imaginative literature - by which I mean fiction and poetry - is a humanising influence, and an essential resource for a well-cultivated mind. An intelligence that has no time for imagination is only an intellect; i.e. necessary, but not sufficient.

[Darryll Rogers]

I'm an ex-subscriber to Prospect, and sometimes buy an issue.

Although I enjoy the perspectives and room offered for in-depth debate in Prospect, I'm also a little wary of the rarified, sometimes self-satisfied attitude which seems to permeate some of the articles, and the content has been predictable too.

Whilst appreciating the limitations faced by a small magazine publisher, it's still frustrating to find that coverage given to South America or Africa is all too occasional. I'm not disputing that how Europe prepares for the future with Chinese hegemony, or finds a satisfactory way to manage its relationships with Muslim citizens and Islamic countries, is not important. Equally, please do not forget the rest of the world.

Finally, with regard to your mission statement - it would be interesting to see more truly investigative journalism, something sorely lacking in current magazines. I'd also like to understand how many real opinion shapers read Prospect.

Darryll Rogers

[Angel Bacon]

In nutritional terms , Prospect is a hugely satisfying long lunch , prepared with diverse ingredients ( I applaud the intelligence and rare integrity of David Goodhart's pieces on immigration ) without cause for indigestion but with much cause for thought ( " from good debate sparks of illumination might fly " ). It would perhaps be even more enjoyable with larger helpings of photographs