Victor Navasky, longtime publisher of The Nation, has stepped aside in favour of Katrina vanden Huevel, who will keep her editor's title.

A tidbit: The Bush years have been very good to The Nation!

An excerpt from the NYT story:

Mr. Navasky, one of the reigning voices of the intellectual left for the last three decades, joined the magazine in 1978 as its editor and became publisher and general partner in 1995 when he bought it with a group of investors, including Ms. vanden Heuvel, who was then acting editor, and the actor Paul Newman.

The Nation had struggled more than most over the years, not making a dime for most of its 140-year existence and nearly sinking beneath the waves a few times. But its circulation, now 187,000, has doubled since George W. Bush became president in 2001, and the magazine started turning a profit, for the first time, in 2003.

Mr. Navasky said the magazine had prospered not only because of its antipathy toward Mr. Bush but because Democrats had been too cowed, especially after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He said television producers wanted an anti-Bush perspective, and when they could not find any Democrats, they sought out Ms. vanden Heuvel and David Corn, who writes for the magazine from Washington, earning them greater prominence.

Navasky will remain associated with The Nation but will spend more time on his other gig: publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review.