On The New Yorker

This struck me as dead-on:

When Harold Ross launched the New Yorker in 1925, the line was that it is not edited for the little lady in Dubuque. In fact, it was edited precisely for her, and for myriad other middlebrow Americans who felt themselves to be in exile from New York, from the center of fashion, the arts, and clever opinion. On coffee tables throughout Middle America, the display of the New Yorker was a statement that the people who live here are not defined by the hinterland to which fate has consigned them; they are in touch with the larger world.