# Conservative periodicals **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 2, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154 "2005-11-02T20:14:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/1 "2005-11-02T20:14:03Z")
Of the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, National Review, Economist, Christian Science Monitor, and excluding the New York Post, which conservative periodically is most prestigious and which leans farthest to the right? ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/2 "2005-11-02T20:48:53Z")
My take – National Review is the most conservative. Most prestigious? Maybe the Economist. Least reason to be included in this list? Christian Science Monitor. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/3 "2005-11-02T20:54:55Z")
The WSJ, The Economist, and the CS Monitor are all quite prestigious. I’d say of those, the Monitor is the least conservative-leaning. The Journal is known for its extraordinarily excellent, neutral reporting and its equally extraordinarily inane right-wing ramblings on the edxitorial page. The Economist is very conservative, but in such a manner that it holds strongly to its established free market, multinationalist principles, regardless of who espouses them, and regardless of whether he calls himself Conservative, Republican, Tory or similar. For instance, The Economist endorsed John Kerry for president last year, albeit weakly. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/4 "2005-11-02T21:14:54Z")
The National Review is easily the most conservative, and I don’t think it’s close. If you ignore the editorial page, then the WSJ, Economist and CSM are all very objective. As for the most prestigious, the WSJ and the Economist slug it out with the Economist narrowly edging out the WSJ, IMO. But I wouldn’t argue much with someone who wanted to say the WSJ was. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/5 "2005-11-02T21:39:05Z")
The WSJ’s news pages are almost entirely separate from its editorial page. Their news articles are excellent and do not try to influence a conservative agenda, as the editorial page forthrightly sets out to do. I would even say that their articles sometimes directly contradict what the lead editorial states, although this is just a memory and I can’t cite a particular article. The Economist has a European free market slant, which puts it into entirely different territory than American conservative periodicals. I don’t regularly read the CSM, but I don’t believe it serves a conservative ideological function as the Weekly Standard or the National Review do. You should remove all the apples from the list. Of the oranges, my guess is that the Weekly Standard is somewhat more influential these days but that’s just a guess. Prestigious? Probably the wrong word to use. Ideologically-oriented magazines care more about influence. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/6 "2005-11-03T04:47:44Z")
There’s also [Commentary](http://www.commentarymagazine.com/), [Human Events](http://www.humaneventsonline.com/index.php?loadhome=true), [American Conservative](http://www.amconmag.com/), [FrontPage](http://www.frontpagemag.com/), and others. Of the bunch, I’d say **National Review** is the most widely known, and perhaps the most popular. **Human Events** and **The Weekly Standard** are both influential. Of these, **National Review** is the most focused, as it contains articles written by its own staff with a few outside opinions, whereas magazines like **Human Events** collect articles from conservative writers across the spectrum. You’ll find articles by sitting Senators and Congressmen and the entire gamut of the heavy hitter conservative circle. ---
**Author:** ![constantine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@constantine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constantine)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/7 "2005-11-03T05:26:19Z")
I would hesitate to describe the Economist as conservative. It is libertarian (they use the term “liberal” or “classical liberal”). They have come out strongly in favor of, for example, legalizing drugs and gay marriage. They are also deeply in favor of free trade and free markets, and so agree with the WSJ and other conservative papers in that regard. Perhaps I am biased by I don’t know of a single periodical that can claim to be more prestigious than the Economist. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-periodicals/329154/8 "2005-11-03T14:50:46Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > There’s also [Commentary](http://www.commentarymagazine.com/), [Human Events](http://www.humaneventsonline.com/index.php?loadhome=true), [American Conservative](http://www.amconmag.com/), [FrontPage](http://www.frontpagemag.com/), and others. > > . WORLD, a Christian news weekly that’s much more intelligent than one would expect.[http://www.worldmag.com/](http://www.worldmag.com/)