The Politics Behind a Magazine :: Media

The Politics Behind a Magazine The Progressive is a magazine that was started in 1909. Mathew Rothschild, who was the editor of the Multinational Monitor a Ralph Nader founded magazine, is the current editor of the magazine. The evidence of this magazine being liberal is found by taking into account the overall visual design, the stance on arguments of the articles, and the political stances of the authors that are published. In glancing through The Progressive and observing it visually a reader can gather a political viewpoint from its advertisements and pictures. The picture, which is seen on the cover of the magazines, is a depiction of an article out of the magazine. For instance, in the 2001 Jan. issue the cover story is â€Å"Aristide, Again† and the picture shows a Haitian man with a marked thumb signifying that he has voted with the slums crowded with people as the background. Along with the world the U.S. does not approve of putting him back in power but for most Haitians, which are poor, he is the only one who is for the poor. Some of the advertisements in the magazine were books that appealed to people wanting to read about making a change such as the one trying to sale The Magnificent Activist that claimed the author was â€Å"A Radical in His Era A Visionary in Ours† (The Progressive 40). There is a section in the magazine called â€Å"On the Line† which houses a collection of small articles that have pictures which stand for the story they are telling and of them was an article called â€Å"Striptease for the Trees.† In this article’s picture a women is radically protesting the clear cutting of California’s old Redwood Trees by standing in the middle of the road bare-chested in front of the logging trucks stopping their passage. From the advertisements and the covers’ eye catching artistic originality to the many pictures for the articles in the magazine a stance for the left side is portrayed. The articles that are published in The Progressive illustrate the views of liberal authors through the topics they pick and the argument they use. When the background of the authors are checked and what they stand for is assessed then a political slant can be assumed on the magazine for choosing them.