Using new media to save the old
For most college students wanting to leave their mark on the world, having helped Mark Zuckerberg launch Facebook would be more than enough. But Chris Hughes ’06, who helped to lead the social network’s growth in its early years, now has his sights set on upending a slightly less sexy medium — magazines. Nine years and a day after he and Zuckerberg took Facebook live from their Kirkland House dorm room, Hughes returned to campus on Tuesday to discuss his latest underdog venture: his plan to reinvigorate the ailing but venerable magazine The New Republic, which he purchased last spring. “I believe in the power of great writing to shape how we see the world,” Hughes said in a conversation at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) sponsored by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. “That sounds incredibly idealistic, and it is lofty, but I’m not ashamed of it.” Hughes’ idealism...