Is 'Foreign Policy' Deal 'a Monkey-Gland Injection'?

Earlier this week, the Washington Post Co. acquired Foreign Policy, a small but celebrated magazine about, well, foreign policy. But to do so, the Post Co. had to snatch FP away from another buyer -- one who predicts the magazine will find its new home a poor fit.

"I was told pretty explicitly that it was our deal," says Richard Burns, chairman of Manhattan Media, whose properties include the New York Press and Avenue magazine. Burns says he held talks with Moisés Naím, FP's editor in chief and publisher, over the summer -- talks he believed were conclusive. "We were told that it was ours to buy," he says. But then, he recalls, Naím phoned him to say Post Co. chairman Donald Graham "had made them an offer they couldn't refuse."

Burns says neither Manhattan Media nor the Post Co. offered much money up front for FP, which "was losing several million dollars a year" under its previous owner, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Rather, the dueling offers took the form of commitments to invest in the magazine, its website, and associated events. (A Foreign Policy source says there have been tensions between the magazine and the Carnegie Endowment ever since Naím relaunched the title in 2000 as a glossy; many at the think tank resented the loss of an academic journal in which they could publish their research.)

Burns, whose company purchased the Harvard magazine 02138 in May, says he wanted to buy FP in the belief that it can be made to turn a profit. The Post Co., he says, is buying it for the prestige value. "You've got to ask yourself how on earth can Foreign Policy, which is minute relative to the size of the Washington Post Co., have any impact on the P-and-L of the Post," says Burns. "It's a classic Washington monkey-gland injection. I've got to believe that Foreign Policy is going to be absolutely lost there."

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