NYRB

Having decided at reference 1 that the TLS and the 'Sun' are owned by the same people, I thought it only fair to take a look at the NYRB which averages more articles of interest to me and which has, as a result, more or less displaced the TLS. Now just bought from time to time in the margins of buying kippers (or whatever) at Waitrose.

Asking Bing about the ownership of the NYRB only turns up something called NYREV Incorporated, about which I can find nothing.

Eventually, I think to try Wikipedia which tells me that the NYRB is not much more than fifty years old and is proud to be an independent. Well almost, as in 1984 the title was bought by one Rea Hederman, who does indeed appear at reference 3. He kept the founding editors on so perhaps it was a friendly, rather than an unfriendly takeover. And I have learned that 'masthead' is what you call where you list the staff of a newspaper in the US. Hederman also appears at reference 2, from which I learn that in the early 1980's, he was sacked from his family's Mississippi chain of newspapers for having dragged their leading title, the Clarion-Ledger out of a dark and racist past - which we are told included covering 'Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington with a front-page headline that read: Washington is Clean Again With Negro Trash Removed'. He bought the NYRB, along with some other members of his family, in 1984, as noted above. We might deduce that breeding bad, motives good. And anyway, maybe he is more or less a sleeping partner in the business.

I can't find out much more about the Clarion-Ledger, beyond that it is now owned by the people at reference 5. And when you try to go to its website you get redirected to reference 4, which doesn't look much like a newspaper web site at all. Puzzled of Epsom.

But the good news is that the NYRB is probably about as independent as you are going to get.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/tls.html.

Reference 2: https://globaljournalist.org/2016/01/fired-by-family-hederman-makes-new-york-review-second-act/. '

Reference 3: https://www.nybooks.com/about/masthead/.

Reference 4: https://eu.clarionledger.com/.

Reference 5: https://www.gannett.com/.

Reference 6: https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/hederman-family/. Another take on the story at reference 2.