On January 9, 1909, Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin founded La Follette’s Weekly to be “a magazine of progress, social, intellectual, institutional.” The goal, he wrote, was “winning back for the people the complete power over government —national, state, and municipal—which has been lost to them.” He attacked private greed in the form of corporate monopolies that hoarded power. He championed the public interest, campaigning for social and economic justice. And he urged the United States not to entangle itself in foreign wars.

In 1929, La Follette’s Weekly changed its name to The Progressive, but the views of the magazine have remained remarkably consistent over the years. The Progressive, a monthly since 1948, has steadfastly stood against militarism, the concentration of power in corporate hands, and the disenfranchisement of the citizenry. It has continued to champion peace, social and economic justice, civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, a preserved environment, and a reinvigorated democracy. Its bedrock values remain nonviolence and freedom of speech.

One of the first voices to speak out against McCarthyism in the 1950s, The Progressive continues to be among the staunchest defenders of the First Amendment, publishing regular McCarthyism Watch updates by Progressive editor, Matthew Rothschild. Now it is one of the few independent voices in the media reporting on Bush’s imperial designs, environmental degradation, and the resurgence in racism, particularly against Muslims and Arab-Americans.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Howard Zinn write regularly for The Progressive. And some of America’s leading poets—Adrienne Rich, Martín Espada, C.K. Williams, Wendell Berry, and Rita Dove—publish original work with us.

We interview the likes of Seymour Hersh, Maxine Hong Kingston, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Barack Obama, Howard Dean, Helen Thomas, Ani DiFranco, Steve Earle, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo, George Carlin, Studs Terkel, Sam Hamill, Danny Glover, Roger Ebert, Martin Sheen, and Terry Tempest Williams. Past contributors include: Jane Addams, Martin Luther King, Jr., Helen Keller, James Baldwin, Upton Sinclair, Clarence Darrow, Jack London, George Orwell, Carl Sandburg, Edward Said, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Tammy Baldwin, June Jordan, Kevin Phillips, and Paul Wellstone

The Progressive has been recognized by:

The George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting

The Utne Independent Press Award for Political Coverage

Print magazine, Communication Arts magazine, How magazine, and The Society of Publication Designers

Matt Rothschild, Editor

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine, which is one of the leading voices for peace and social justice in this country. Rothschild has appeared on Nightline, C-SPAN, The O'Reilly Factor, and NPR, and his newspaper commentaries have run in the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, the Miami Herald, and a host of other newspapers. Rothschild is also the author of a book entitled You Have No Rights: Stories of America in Our Repressive Age (New Press, 2007). A graduate of Harvard University, Rothschild prior to coming to The Progressive worked as the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader. Rothschild came to The Progressive in 1983, and has worked for the magazine in many different capacities, first as associate editor, then managing editor, then publisher, and since 1994 as editor. Rothschild brought on distinguished social critics as columnists, including Barbara Ehrenreich, Eduardo Galeano, and Howard Zinn. He added monthly original poetry from the likes of Martín Espada and Adrienne Rich, and he added the humorists Kate Clinton and Will Durst. On the magazine's website, Rothschild contributes several times a week with his "This Just In" commentaries. And he keeps a running tally of civil liberties infringements in his "McCarthyism Watch." Rothschild writes monthly in The Progressive. His "The New McCarthyism" ran as the cover story of the January 2002 issue of The Progressive, and he wrote "Bush Trashes the United Nations" as the cover story of the April 2003 issue. He has interviewed Senator Russ Feingold, singer Ani DiFranco, and the journalist Robert Fisk. He also hosts Progressive Radio, a syndicated weekly half-hour program, and he does radio commentaries Monday through Friday. Rothschild is also the co-founder and director of The Progressive Media Project, which since 1993 has been distributing opinion pieces to newspapers around the country in an effort to diversify and democratize the national debate.

Ruth Conniff, Political Editor

Ruth Conniff covers national politics for The Progressive and is a voice of The Progressive on many TV and radio programs. Conniff was a regular on CNN’s Sunday Capital Gang and is now a regular on PBS’s To the Contrary. She also has appeared frequently on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and on NPR and Pacifica. Conniff’s op-ed commentaries have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. She also contributes regularly to Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper. Conniff became The Progressive’s Associate Editor in 1991, and Managing Editor in January 1997.

Elizabeth DiNovella, Culture Editor

Elizabeth DiNovella is Culture Editor of The Progressive magazine. She writes about activism, politics, music, books, and film. She also produces Progressive Radio, a thirty-minute public affairs program hosted by Matthew Rothschild.

DiNovella joined The Progressive staff in 2001. She became Associate Editor in 2002 and Culture Editor in 2003.

Before working for The Progressive, DiNovella was the News and Public Affairs Director at WORT-FM, the community radio station of Madison, Wisconsin. She now volunteers in the news department at WORT-FM.

Amitabh Pal, Managing Editor

Amitabh Pal has written several articles for the magazine. His feature on pacifist Abdul Ghaffar Khan, "Frontier Gandhi", appeared in the February 2002 issue and was republished by the Utne magazine, and his article on the call center industry in India, "Indian by Day, American by Night" appeared in the August 2004 issue. He has also done interviews for The Progressive, including of John Kenneth Galbraith in 2000, Mikhail Gorbachev in the December 2003 issue, and Shirin Ebadi in the September 2004 issue. Prior to becoming Managing Editor, Pal was the Editor of the Progressive Media Project, an op-ed service affiliated with The Progressivethat sends out commentaries to approximately 350 daily newspapers. His op-eds have been published in several newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Houston Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Miami Herald. He has appeared on several radio stations based all over the United States and in Europe. His articles have been featured in college and school textbooks in the United States and Australia. Pal was the Editor of the Progressive Media Project from November 1997 till March 2003. He joined as Associate Editor of the Project in February 1997. He earlier did a stint as Municipal Editor with the State Port Pilot in Southport, N.C. Pal has a Master's in Political Science, specializing in international relations, from N.C. State University in Raleigh, N.C. He has a Master's in Journalism from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.