The American Prospect survives its funding crisis

The liberal policy and politics magazine in Washington says it received a grant this week that pushed recent donations over $1.2 million, ensuring continued operation for now. The magazine needed to cover an immediate $500,000 funding gap and another $700,000 for the budget through 2012. "I'm pleased and relieved," editor Kit Rachlis told the Huffington Post. "But that doesn't mean Jay Harris, the publisher, and I don't have hard work to figure out next year's budget and figuring out a sustainable business model for the Prospect so that it doesn't face this type of crisis ever again." Rachlis also said the journal's two-year writing fellows program for young journalists will continue.

Rachlis, named editor of the magazine in February 2011, is the former editor of both Los Angeles magazine and the LA Weekly, and a former senior editor at the Los Angeles Times. Another longtime LA journalism figure, Harold Meyerson, is also at the American Prospect these days. The magazine just this week ran a long piece on the street vendors of MacArthur Park by Jesse Katz, another LA writer.

Previously on LA Observed:
The American Prospect may be on the ropes