Calling GEORGE Magazine a “bust” is just wrong.
I know—because I had a front row seat.
At the time, I was running domestic digital editorial operations for Hachette Filipacchi Médias, including GEORGE.
Let’s get the facts straight:
• Launched in 1995
• Turned a profit in year one
• Reached 400,000+ paid readers
• Scaled to 1M+ online readers before most publishers understood digital
That’s not a failure. That’s rare.
But more importantly—GEORGE changed the conversation.
It made a then-radical claim:
Politics and popular culture are not separate worlds.
Today, that feels obvious. Back then, it was disruptive.
Then everything changed.
When John F. Kennedy Jr. died in 1999, the magazine didn’t “fail.” It lost its founder, its vision, and its future—overnight. And that distinction matters.
GEORGE didn’t fail. It lost its center of gravity.
In many ways, it was simply ahead of its time—
predicting the world we now live in, where politics, media, and influence are deeply intertwined.
What I remember most, though, is the tone.
There was optimism.
A belief that politics could engage, inspire—even entertain—without losing its seriousness.
We could use more of that right now. Because not everything is measured by how long it lasts.
Some things are measured by the mark they leave.
GEORGE left one.
