Our Neighborhood

We seek to nurture the community of senior federal officials in print, in person and online.

In An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power, John Steele Gordon tells the story of a Scots immigrant in New York, James Gordon Bennett, and his founding of the first modern newspaper, the New York Herald, in 1835.

Bennett used newly invented steam-powered rotary presses to cut the cost of production, and an army of newsboys to hawk the paper at a penny per copy. But his real innovation was in the package of information he presented: nonpartisan news, late-breaking scoops and dispatches from the distant battlefields of the Mexican-American War, then from the capitals of Europe. Scandal, too, the book notes: "When a beautiful prostitute was murdered in one of New York's more fashionable brothels, Bennett played the story for all it was worth." By the time of the Civil War, the Herald had reached a circulation of 400,000.

Thanks to Bennett, people in New York could find out every day what was going on in their neighborhood and beyond, and what they might procure from local merchants advertising in the paper. The daily newspaper quickly became essential, as The North American Review wrote in 1866, "one of those things which are rooted in the necessities of modern civilization . . . [connecting] each individual with the general life of mankind."

The Herald helped create the social and economic community of New York. And this remains a central mission of newspapers and magazines; they define and serve the particular communities in which they live.

Radio and television, powerful new media, could never quite match print's ability to assemble a package of important, useful and entertaining information. Now the Internet challenges the primacy of print, but still it cannot match the great package, foldable and readable anywhere, that constitutes a good newspaper or magazine.

Magazines like this one, though, recognize that they should not rely only on print-the one-to-many form of information distribution. And so we declare that we will serve our audiences, and build our communities, in print, in person and online.

Our community is rooted in senior management of the federal executive branch-the people who make sure agencies achieve their missions as best they can. In print, we reach 75,000 people with 21 issues each year. Readers include about two-thirds of the Senior Executive Service, 4,500 senior military officers and 42,000 people at the GS 13-15 levels.

We were early adopters of the World Wide Web, and today GovExec.com attracts some 3 million page views every month. It has spawned a variety of e-mail newsletters, including GovExec.com Today, which reaches 110,000 people five times a week. Our Web operation has just begun a new video service, GovExecTV-providing news, analysis and interviews.

The video programming will offer opportunities to watch leaders interact with interlocutors from our staff and from partner organizations like the National Academy of Public Administration. We already are taping and broadcasting the Leadership Breakfast and Executive Luncheon series we produce at the National Press Club. In these events, and at the annual Excellence in Government conference (July 10-11), we seek to build our community in person as well as in print and online.