Ben Smith Gifts Harper’s Best Subs Week Ever
1st April 2021
Say what you want about the sickness of cancel culture, it can be great for business. Nothing rallies paying readers to a writer quite like the news that somebody wants him or her silenced.
Nothing, that is, apart being called ‘odd’ by the New York Times. On Monday, the paper produced an article about Harper’s magazine by its ultra-successful media columnist Ben Smith. Under the headline, ‘Inside America’s Most Interesting Magazine, and Media’s Oddest Workplace’, Smith was generous about Harper’s but quite rude about its president, John R. MacArthur, whom he made out to be an eccentrically dressed crank.
The result? Harper’s had its best week ever for subscriptions.