Magazine Publishers of America
Washington, DC-based Congressional Quarterly, Inc. began covering Congress in 1945 and despite its name, the magazine was quarterly for just one year. CQ Weekly’s circulation of nearly 10,000 includes members of Congress and officials in government, business, media and academe. Robert Merry is an author, longtime journalist and onetime U.S. Army counter-espionage agent in West Germany.
On its website (www.cq.com) it is stated that – which appears 48 times a year, excluding the Congressional recesses in August and December – became an MPA member earlier this year. Q1. What’s the best idea you’ve ever gotten from a reader? A U.S. senator told me in the fall of 1987 that Congress was less intimidated by the political force of President Reagan than ever before, and that led to a cover article entitled “Reaganism: A Spent Force.” It came out on the Monday of the famous stock-market crash and was cited widely in the coverage of that event, including on the front page of The New York Times. Q2. What story in your magazine has had the greatest impact?In 1991, we did a special issue called “Where the Money Goes,” breaking down Congressional appropriations, category by category, in lucid prose that was unprecedented in its detail and accessibility. It got a National Magazine Award nomination and garnered national attention as the best and most educational journalistic explanation of a subject that’s so arcane and detailed that it seldom gets covered with clarity and thoroughness. Q3. If you could do your “dream issue,” what would it contain? My dream issue would include an investigative piece that identified all Al Qaeda cells in the United States and led to an FBI roll-up of those cells within 30 days. Q4. Now that we're in the midst of a hard-fought presidential campaign, the war in Iraq (and to a lesser degree, Afghanistan) as well as the high terror alert, what's the most noticeable change you've noticed lately in Washington's mood?The increased intensity of the debate and the bitterness of the participants, manifest in the persistent assertions by those on both sides that their opponents lack legitimacy in the political arena. The unity that emerged after 9/11 is totally gone. And it's difficult to conceive what kinds of political developments could reverse this trend.
Q1. What’s the best idea you’ve ever gotten from a reader? A U.S. senator told me in the fall of 1987 that Congress was less intimidated by the political force of President Reagan than ever before, and that led to a cover article entitled “Reaganism: A Spent Force.” It came out on the Monday of the famous stock-market crash and was cited widely in the coverage of that event, including on the front page of The New York Times.
Q2. What story in your magazine has had the greatest impact?In 1991, we did a special issue called “Where the Money Goes,” breaking down Congressional appropriations, category by category, in lucid prose that was unprecedented in its detail and accessibility. It got a National Magazine Award nomination and garnered national attention as the best and most educational journalistic explanation of a subject that’s so arcane and detailed that it seldom gets covered with clarity and thoroughness.
Q3. If you could do your “dream issue,” what would it contain? My dream issue would include an investigative piece that identified all Al Qaeda cells in the United States and led to an FBI roll-up of those cells within 30 days.
Q4. Now that we're in the midst of a hard-fought presidential campaign, the war in Iraq (and to a lesser degree, Afghanistan) as well as the high terror alert, what's the most noticeable change you've noticed lately in Washington's mood?The increased intensity of the debate and the bitterness of the participants, manifest in the persistent assertions by those on both sides that their opponents lack legitimacy in the political arena. The unity that emerged after 9/11 is totally gone. And it's difficult to conceive what kinds of political developments could reverse this trend.
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