The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 on the notion that a handful of plucky young writers and editors, armed with an honest desire to make government work and a willingness to ask uncomfortable questions, could tell the story of what really matters in Washington better than a roomful of Beltway insiders at a Georgetown dinner party. In our cluttered little downtown DC office, we’re still doing what we have done for more than 50 years, and what fewer and fewer publications do today: telling fascinating, deeply reported stories about the ideas and characters that animate America’s government.

We don’t chase news cycles, or obsess over the endless political horse race. We care about how the government can be improved, and why it hasn’t; who’s a fraud and who isn’t; which ideas ought to be banished from the nation’s capital and which ones deserve to be championed.

We’re not a subsidiary of some giant media company or a mouthpiece for ideologues. We’re an independent voice, listened to by insiders and willing to take on sacred cows—liberal and conservative.

Instead of cynically tearing down institutions and programs, we offer innovative solutions: how to get the best people to work for the government and how to get the best government for the people; how to get teachers who can teach and social workers who can make welfare reform work. We believe in the great American traditions of civic responsibility, caring for the down and out, and giving the average person a break.

Masthead

Founding Editor: Charles Peters
Editor in Chief: Paul Glastris
Senior Editor: Phillip Longman
Managing Editor: Amy M. Stackhouse
Executive Editor, Digital: Matthew Cooper
Legal Affairs Editor: Garrett Epps
Politics Editor: Bill Scher
Editors: Will Norris, Rob Wolfe
Consulting Editor: Haley Sweetland Edwards
Art Director: Amy Swan

Contributing Writers: David Atkins, Shannon Brownlee, James Bruno, David Edward Burke, Margaret Carlson, Joshua Douglas, Anne Kim, Jeanne Lenzer, Chris Matthews, James North, Reginald Oh, Storer Rowley, Peter M. Shane, Robert Shapiro, David Shipler, Jennifer Taub, Lauren Wolfe

Contributing Editors: Jonathan Alter, Steve Benen, James Bennet, Thomas N. Bethell, Tom Bethell (1936-2021), Mariah Blake, Daniel Block, Katherine Boo, Taylor Branch, Nicholas Confessore, Matt Connolly, Matthew Cooper, Eric Cortellessa, Michelle Cottle, Kevin Drum, Gregg Easterbrook, Gilad Edelman, Haley Sweetland Edwards, John Eisendrath, James Fallows, T. A. Frank, Daniel Franklin, Grace Gedye, Kukula Kapoor Glastris (1958–2017), John Gravois, Joshua Green, Charles Homans, David Ignatius, Mickey Kaus, Phil Keisling, Ed Kilgore, Anne Kim, Michael Kinsley, Christina Larson, Nicholas Lemann, Suzannah Lessard, Nancy LeTourneau, Arthur Levine, Martin Longman, Joshua Micah Marshall, Jon Meacham, Stephanie Mencimer, Matthew Miller, Rachel Morris, Timothy Noah, Joseph Nocera, John Rothchild (1949–2019), Jonathan Rowe (1946–2011), David Segal, Walter Shapiro, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Scott Shuger (1952–2002), Amy Sullivan, Nicholas Thompson, Steven Waldman, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Robert Worth

Editorial Advisory Board: Nicholas Lemann, Chair; Clara Bingham, Debra Dickerson, James Fallows, J. J. Gould, Steven Teles

Strategic Advisory Board: Emanuel L. Rouvelas, Chair; Clara Bingham, Robert L. DeFer, William V. Glastris, Markos Kounalakis

Deputy Director: Alice J. Gallin-Dwyer

Board of Directors: Michelle Cottle, Terry Edmonds, Paul Glastris, Nicholas Lemann, Michael J. Sorrell, Steven Waldman

President and Publisher Emeritus: Markos Kounalakis

Director of Digital Strategy and Outreach: Julie Zebrak
Director of Finance: Terri Wallace
Advertising Sales Manager: David Greene
Business Management Consultant: Claire Iseli
Publishing Consultant: Amy Marshall Lambrecht
Editorial Projects Consultant: Dorian Friedman
Web Site Development: Newspack

Funders

The nonprofit Washington Monthly is grateful to the following foundations and donors for their generous recent support:

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