Best Editor Award: Sheldon Richman for The Freeman

Editors often go unrecognized, but without them the periodicals wouldn't appear and the articles in them wouldn't be as good as they are.  A good editor puts his impact on the periodical without anyone knowing that he is doing that.  The periodical comes to reflect the personality and intellectual tastes of the editor.

Within the field of economics, we have numerous periodicals ranging from scientific journals to blogs.  Intelligent economics directed at interested laymen --- not really economic journalism and not really policy wonkism, but instead a view of contemporary economic affairs from a consistent economic perspective is rare.  I would nominate only three -- The Economist,  Challenge and The Freeman.   Clearly, The Economist is the most "mainstream" of these three with Challenge being more or less the government as corrective side of contemporary affairs (reflecting a Keynesian, institutionalist, and sometimes even Marxist perspective), while The Freeman provides commentary from the market as self-regulating perspective.

These periodicals serve a unique niche in the world of economic dicussion.  Blogging now also serves that niche, and while it provides a quick-fix to the econ junkie, I would still argue that periodicals still serve an important role and their editors determine their success and failure.

I have been a regular reader of the three periodicals mentioned above since the 1980s.  The Freeman has been delivered each month in the mail since 1979, and there was a period of time when I looked at it and put it aside --- to be a coffee table periodical.  It was joined there over the years by Reason, Inquiry, Sports Illustrated, Tennis, and now Golf.  But over the years, Inquiry went out of print, and I cut off my subscription to Reason and Sports Illustrated and substituted Golf for Tennis.  The Freeman (and The Economist) has been steady and for the past decade it has been a source of information and inspiration under the editorship of Sheldon Richman.

The December 2008 issue is a case in point.  Robert Murphy's "The Nationalization of the Mortage Market" is a perfect case in point.  See Sheldon's editorial perspective "Bailing Out Statism".  Congratulations to Sheldon for doing such an excellent job at The Freeman. 

If we gave out an award for editing in economics, Sheldon would be my nominee.

Comments

[Sheldon Richman]

Thank you, Pete. This means more to men than I can say.
Sheldon

[Sheldon Richman]

Oops. Being an editor, not a proof reader, I'd like to edit my own previous comment: This means more to ME [striking "men"] than I can say.
Sheldon

[Danny Shahar]

Hear hear!

[Pete]

I second Pete's post. Sheldon is a superlative editor and through the excellent job he does with The Freeman contributes in an impressive and important way to our cause. Thank you, Sheldon.

[Wayne Pugh]

Not a bad way to start the new year.

It's not hard to do a job well - but to do it well consistently over so many years is truly commendable.

Way to go Sheldon.

[Bob Murphy]

Thanks Pete for the compliment of my article. It means more to women than I can say.

[Danny Shahar]

Nice.

[Sheldon Richman]

Bob, tsk, tsk. I'll send your comment over to the copy editor asap.

Thanks, all.

[Larissa]

Congrats, Sheldon!

[Gene Callahan]

Pete, this means more to me than man can say!

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