National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. in the magazine’s early years

Recent events at our friendly competitor The Weekly Standard have been sobering. Reliant on a single wealthy benefactor, a very fine magazine suddenly and unceremoniously went out of business on Friday. That isn’t how we do things at NR. At NR we cultivate a wide base of subscribers and we hope to remain in business for a long time to come. You can help.


The deluxe NRPlus package — the print magazine plus unlimited access to the riches of our Web site — costs about the same as one cup of coffee a week. Or about half the price of buying one newspaper a week. By joining, you’d be helping us keep bringing you a fairly immense amount of conservative news and commentary, including some of the finest writers working anywhere in journalism, the David Frenches and Kevin Williamsons and Jonah Goldbergs. As Rich Lowry often says, we’re not a business. We’re a cause. We don’t have a billionaire backing us, nor or we at risk of losing a billionaire’s interest. We only have you.

But NRPlus isn’t just a subscription. It’s a club. A few weeks ago we had a little keg party in the office and invited NRPlus members. It was a blast. Rich and the other editors hold regular conference calls with members. And NRPlus means joining our Facebook community, where you can weigh matters of the day with people who share your principles but hold freewheeling debates and discussions within the conservative framework. Social media can be exhausting because of the troll factor or because of people who are so obtuse that they don’t even grant the basic greatness of America or the wisdom of the Constitution. The NRPlus Facebook group is an oasis of sanity and civility, especially if (like me) you find that your “other” Facebook friends lean (very) left. Also NRPlus means eliminating almost all of the ads that can slow down your reading.


Let’s face it, the media-cultural complex would love it if NR went the way of The Weekly Standard. Instead we intend to prosper. We’re going to keep flying our Jolly Roger as long as we can. You can join our merry band by signing up with NRPlus.