Townhall Magazine

Originally uploaded by Rob Bluey

The popular conservative website Townhall.com is expanding beyond the web. Last week in the mail I received the inaugural issue of Townhall Magazine. The 82-page magazine features exclusive articles from some of Townhall’s most popular writers as well as features from other well-known conservative contributors.

A letter from co-publisher/editor-in-chief Chuck DeFeo sums up Townhall’s rationale for starting the magazine:

The media landscape of today has grown so wide and so fast paced that it is difficult to keep up with it all. As we looked to 2008 we saw an opportunity to provide something that captures the myriad of voices and distills it into one product.

The magazine reminds me of a conservative version of Newsweek. The design is slick and clean. The articles, meanwhile, tend to focus on people and personalities. Take, for instance, Jennifer Rubin’s profile of Lynne Cheney or Mary Katharine Ham’s article about families of fallen heroes at the Marine Corps Marathon. There’s also a feature called “Townhall of Fame” that recognizes outstanding individuals who are making a difference in their communities. The pages are filled with photos, making these articles even more enjoyable and interesting.

In creating the magazine, I can’t help but wonder if Townhall was trying to take the opposite approach of National Review and the Weekly Standard. Both are very gray and basic in design, whereas Townhall Magazine strives to be colorful and edgy.

One of my favorite articles in the first issue is Amanda Carpenter’s piece on the potential cost of a Hillary Clinton administration, which is accompanied by a detailed chart outlining the price tag on each of Clinton’s policy proposals. I’m also glad to see Townhall Magazine has lined up Jerry Bowyer as a contributing editor to supply his data-driven analysis. Another feature I know I’ll look forward to each month is Patrick Ruffini’s Digital Democracy column. This month he writes about anti-Hillary activity online.

As the co-founder of Townhall.com nearly 15 years ago, The Heritage Foundation is naturally proud of the new magazine. Our president, Ed Feulner, congratulations Townhall in a letter to the editor, and my colleague Mike Franc has an article about the liberal policy agenda for 2008 in a section of the magazine called WONK’d.

The only thing that’s missing for the magazine is a website, ironically. Without anywhere to direct you, I instead recommend sending a note to the magazine’s managing editor, Katie Favazza, at katie.favazza@townhall.com, for more information.