Are you a citizen? Or a customer?

Why one legendary American institution stopped telling the American Story.

I failed, in public. It was embarrassing.

But my project’s animating idea remains a good one, especially today — Independence Day.

To John Fahey, the former CEO of the National Geographic Society, you’re a customer. What would you like to buy today? A book? A magazine? A pair of hiking boots? Some National Geographic-branded bedroom furniture… or cheese?

From 2009 to 2014, I produced an online project called Society Matters, which explored the past, present, and future of the National Geographic Society (NGS), where I worked for more than 20 years.

The story I told about NGS went something like this:

• 1888 to 1941: National Geographic magazine (NGM) focused primarily on science and physical geography. Along the way, the Magazine endorsed the eugenics movement, printed painfully racist stories, and published flattering portraits of Hitler’s Berlin (February 1937) and Mussolini’s Rome (March 1937). Race theory, scientism, unbridled nationalism, and fascism — they seemed like a good idea at the time.

• 1941 to 1996: After Pearl Harbor, the Magazine woke up and made a 180-degree editorial pivot. They gave maps to Gen. Eisenhower to help Allied forces defeat the Nazis. They told stories about brave American troops stationed in Korea. And they spent most of the next 50+ years narrating the democratic adventure for an English-speaking audience with stories like America Through Lincoln’s Eyes and Thomas Jefferson: Architect of Freedom. NGM also published beautiful single-topic issues to celebrate the bicentennials of Australia (1988) and France (1989) because those two countries shared a similar political narrative animated by the same Enlightenment values that we Americans embrace. The Magazine also covered the massacre of democracy activists in China’s Tiananmen Square. If National Geographic magazine had an unofficial tagline in those years, it was: America & the West Greet The World. … In this editorial incarnation, the Magazine — the official journal of the Society — was a huge success. By the 1980s, more than 10 million people belonged to NGS and paid monthly “dues” (a subscription, really, to the Magazine). Money poured in faster than the Society could spend it. This was National Geographic’s Golden Age.

• 1996 to present: With (now former) CEO John Fahey at the helm, the Society set out to become a global media company. But to do business in China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and many other countries that are hostile to democratic values, the Magazine had to execute another 180-degree pivot — back to science reporting with lots of stories about climate change and cheetahs and beautiful landscapes. That meant no more celebrations of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison or Abraham Lincoln. In exchange for abandoning The Democracy Story, National Geographic was given the world; today the Magazine is published in more than 30 different “local-language editions.” Once again, the Magazine is something that even authoritarian thugs can enjoy, which suggests that whatever lesson the Society learned in 1941 seems to have been forgotten. (In 2015, the Magazine and all the Society’s other media properties were sold to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. And in 2019, Murdoch sold it all to Disney.)

The main message I tried to share with John Fahey and the editors at National Geographic:

We need to keep telling the American story — to ourselves and our children — or it will vanish along with the American experiment.

My project failed. No one at the Magazine wanted to hear what I was saying. The Magazine continued to publish in China and Russia and Saudi Arabia, and if Thomas Jefferson had to be expunged from the editorial mix — and from our Society’s Story — to grow National Geographic’s global brand and business, so be it. … Eventually, legal threats from National Geographic forced me to suspend my Society Matters project. (The site is no longer available online, although you can see various entries via the Wayback Machine.)

Was this embarrassing? Yes, of course. Nobody likes to face-plant in public. The good news is that other people are still fighting the good fight. For example, in the video below, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (of blessed memory), the former Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, provides a wonderful summary of what took me more than four years to explain.

It’s worth a listen, especially today.

Happy 4th of July! 🇺🇲🗽🎇