(JTA) — Leon Wieseltier, the former longtime literary editor of The New Republic, is reportedly teaming up with Steve Jobs’ widow to form a new publication.
The venture has not been fully conceptualized, but their journal will look at the effects of technology on people’s lives, among other things, New York magazine reported Thursday.
Laurene Powell Jobs, whose net worth is approximately $17 billion, also is a funder and board member of OZY media, a news site founded by former MSNBC commentator Carlos Watson in 2013. The majority of her philanthropic efforts are invested in education projects such as College Track, which helps disadvantaged students graduate from college.
Wieseltier resigned from The New Republic in December 2014 after the magazine’s majority owner, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, fired the editor-in-chief, Franklin Foer. Shortly thereafter, more than 20 other senior and contributing editors joined Wieseltier and Foer in leaving.
READ: Chris Hughes broke The New Republic — and my heart
Wieseltier denied reported rumors that he was interested in buying The New Republic, which Hughes put up for sale early last week nearly four years after its purchase, in a conversation with New York.
“I can’t imagine a more distressed asset,” he said.
Since leaving The New Republic, Wieseltier has been a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
He wrote an essay in The New York Times Book Review bemoaning the state of modern life, technology and criticism.
“Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability,” he wrote in January 2015.
Wieseltier is the child of Holocaust survivors and the author of “Kaddish,” among other books.
