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TNR cancels December issue after mass staff resignation

The New Republic will not publish the issue that had been slated to hit shelves on December 15, following Friday's mass resignation by top editors and contributors.

"As you know, an issue that was in production by recently departed editors and writers, scheduled to appear on newsstands on December 15th, was left unfinished," Guy Vidra, the New Republic's chief executive, wrote in a memo to staff on Saturday. "Despite the incredible work you all are doing, going forward with the issue would run the risk of falling short of this institution’s renowned high standards."

The New Republic will now move to a 10-issue-per-year publishing schedule, down from 20. Subscribers to the print edition will receive the total number of issues they've paid for, but will receive them over a longer period of time, a spokesperson for Hughes and Vidra told POLITICO. For instance, a subscriber who just signed up for a one-year subscription will now receive 20 issues over the course of two years.

The next print issue will appear on February 2, under the stewardship of newly appointed editor Gabriel Snyder. The change is part of a major overhaul that aims to rebrand the century-old commentary magazine as a "digital media company." TNR will also relocate its headquarters to New York. Those changes forced editor Frank Foer and veteran literary editor Leon Wieseltier to resign on Thursday, citing strong differences with Hughes and Vidra.

On Friday, the majority of The New Republic's masthead resigned en masse. Late Friday night, former editors, writers and executives of the magazine issued a statement protesting the "destruction" of the magazine at the hands of Hughes.

"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," they wrote. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."