National Journal is an American weekly magazine that reports on politics and policy. It is part of National Journal Group, a division of David Bradley‘s Atlantic Media Company.
National Journal was founded in 1969 by 30-year-old attorney Anthony Carder Stout and investment banker Randy Smith, with the goal of creating a magazine that would cover the executive branch in much the same way that Congressional Quarterly covered Congress. That narrow focus proved untenable for a long-term venture, though, and in 1975, after Stout hired Newsweek’s John Fox Sullivan to become the magazine’s publisher, National Journal expanded its purview to include all aspects of the federal government.
Between 1986 and 1997, National Journal was owned by the Times Mirror company; in 1997, Bradley acquired it. (He acquired The Atlantic magazine, forming the Atlantic Media Group, in 1999.) When Bradley bought it, National Journal had a circulation of 6,500. And though it hoped to expand its audience by way of “more user-friendly content” — shorter, less jargon-filled stories — it was largely read by an inside-the-Beltway audience of Congressional members and staffers, White House and agency workers, lobbyists, lawyers, and members of the media.