The Nation announced today that journalist and author D.D. Guttenplan will become the magazine’s next editor, effective June 15. Guttenplan, who is currently editor at large for The Nation, succeeds Katrina vanden Heuvel, who will become editorial director and remain publisher of the country’s oldest weekly magazine.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, who marks her 25th year as editor of The Nation in 2019, will continue to chart the strategic direction of The Nation working with Guttenplan and The Nation’s president, Erin O’Mara. She will also edit select writers and contribute regular commentary. Vanden Heuvel has led The Nation through turbulent political times, steering the magazine into the digital era and winning multiple awards for The Nation’s investigative reporting, commentary, and political impact.
Guttenplan was one of the magazine’s lead correspondents covering the 2016 presidential campaign and is the author of The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority. In 2015 he co-edited The Nation’s 150th-anniversary special issue with vanden Heuvel and wrote The Nation: A Biography, a definitive history of the magazine. His book American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F Stone, about The Nation’s former Washington correspondent, won the 2010 Sperber Prize for Biography.
“As my co-editor for The Nation’s 150th-anniversary issue, I saw first-hand Don’s rigor and creative thinking,” said vanden Heuvel. “An accomplished journalist working at the intersection of history, politics, and activism, Don is the right choice to continue to move The Nation forward. I’m excited about The Nation’s future, our expanding reach across all platforms as a critical voice for sanity and progress at this moment in history.”
“I’m thrilled to be taking over at The Nation at such a crucial time in the magazine’s history and in our national life,” said Guttenplan. “The Nation is a beacon for progressive ideas, democratic politics, women’s rights, racial and economic justice, and open debate between liberals and radicals.”
“Under Katrina’s leadership,” said Guttenplan, “The Nation has consistently shown that ideas matter, championing causes often dismissed as radical or marginal at the time only to be embraced by the mainstream years and sometimes decades later. The Nation spoke out boldly against the Iraq War, warned about the dangers of ‘The New Inequality,’ and has consistently been a brave, and sometimes lonely, voice opposing the rush to a new Cold War. I’m immensely proud of our history and look forward to helping our incredibly talented community of editors and writers shape our next chapter.”
In addition to the transition in editorship, The Nation will be hiring a new executive web editor to drive the continued growth of TheNation.com. The Nation is also announcing that journalist Elie Mystal will write regular commentary at TheNation.com focused on politics, law, and racial justice. Mystal joins the Rev. William Barber, the magazine’s civil-rights correspondent, in covering race, and is part of a growing cohort of diverse and dynamic voices at The Nation.
Under vanden Heuvel’s leadership, The Nation has evolved into a multi-channel media company—print, web, newsletters, podcasts, video, and a robust educational program. The Nation has won a “Shorty” award for its Twitter feed, @thenation, which has more than 1.24 million followers, and has developed a strong presence on Facebook and Instagram. Over 30 percent of the traffic at TheNation.com and audience engagement on social media is from readers 18–34 years old, reflecting The Nation’s continued relevance to a new generation. In 2017, The Nation launched Take Action Now, a weekly newsletter curating the resistance by highlighting three actions the Nation community can take based on the time they have. This newsletter has a passionate following and is part of a portfolio of newsletters that has a combined reach of 800,000 subscribers.
Alongside vanden Heuvel’s new role shaping the future of The Nation as editorial director, she will continue writing her regular weekly column for The Washington Post and will be speaking, writing, and collecting articles and essays for a forthcoming book. Vanden Heuvel will continue working with the Congressional Progressive Caucus and other groups to craft a progressive foreign policy.
Guttenplan and vanden Heuvel are both former interns for The Nation, joining hundreds of working journalists, editors, and political leaders as alumni of the program. The Nation intern program is one of the premier editorial fact-checking and journalism-training programs in the field, and The Nation was one of the first media outlets to pay interns a $15-an-hour wage. The Nation has been deeply committed to nurturing young journalists and working to make the field of journalism diverse, through initiatives like StudentNation, the Nation writing fellowship, Black on Campus, and the Student Journalism Conference.
Guttenplan, who until recently was editor in chief of the London-based Jewish Quarterly, is the producer of the acclaimed documentary film Edward Said: The Last Interview and wrote and presented War, Lies, and Audiotape, a radio documentary for the BBC about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the origins of the Vietnam War. A former education correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, former columnist for New York Newsday, and former senior editor at The Village Voice, his essays and reporting have appeared in the Atlantic, The Guardian, Haaretz, Harper’s, the London Review of Books, The New York Times, and the Times Literary Supplement.
We now confront a second Trump presidency.
There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.
Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.
Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.
The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.
Onwards,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation
“This is a moment of continuity and change,” said vanden Heuvel. “Don has been a part of The Nation and our success, but also brings new energy, ideas, and bold leadership to the magazine. He is deeply committed to growing a new generation of voices. And he understands the critical role of independent journalism in our society.”
Guttenplan will be the magazine’s 16th editor in its 154-year history. Guttenplan and vanden Heuvel are available for interviews.
The NationTwitterFounded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life, from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.