The pointlessness of banning Bannon | 4 September 2018

Under David Remnick’s editorship, the New Yorker has become stronger than ever during a period where many titles have collapsed. So you’d think he might be able to fend off the kind of nonsense he’s just experienced. The New Yorker has branched out to publish unmissable podcasts, regular emails, blogs and events which combine to push the magazine sales up 10pc. Remnick hasn’t torn it up and started again. He managed to keep everything the same, by changing everything: projecting and protecting the magazine’s identity, on and off the page.

So when he decided to conduct an interview with Steve Bannon live on stage, as part of the New Yorker Festival, it was a typically gutsy decision. He’ll have known that a good chunk of the staff would feel queasy about this, given how Bannon is spoken of as some kind of political antichrist. But objectively, who could doubt that Bannon is worthy of an interview? He’s a former chief strategist to Donald Trump, and helped the President plot his path to power by spotting things that others missed.