While the parliamentary skirmishes over Brexit continue, along with the rest of the 24-hour news cycle, spare a thought for the journalists who bring us news and comment, day in, day out,

from across the world. So far this year, 80 journalists have been killed, 60 are held hostage and 348 are imprisoned. These are shockingly high figures — and they are getting worse. The

charity Reporters Without Borders, which compiles global statistics on the murder and persecution of journalists, says that by all these measures, life is getting more dangerous for those

who report and comment on the news. The most lethal countries for reporters are, not surprisingly, Afghanistan and Syria, followed by Mexico and Yemen. The most prominent case this year was

profession, even in the West. In recent years there has been no repeat of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, although the four journalists of the Maryland _Capital Gazette_ who were shot

dead by a lone gunman with a grievance last June were victims of the worst single attack of its kind in American history. It is idle to blame such shootings on Donald Trump’s verbal

character assassinations of individual journalists or media outlets. Social media plays a much bigger role, by feeding the obsessions of those who are consumed by hatred so of all kinds. It

still requires courage to write about the most sensitive subjects, knowing that the consequence may be violence or, in many countries, incarceration by the state. A different kind of threat

may also have a chilling effect: the closing down of publications. This week the _Weekly Standard _of Washington publishes its final edition. Founded in 1995 by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes,

it was the leading journal of the neoconservatives, who have played such a crucial role in US foreign and domestic policy since the 1970s. Full disclosure: Bill Kristol is a friend of the

present writer. So was his father, the late Irving Kristol, the father of neoconservatism, and his mother, the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, who is still writing brilliantly at the age of

96. Irving used to tell me — as he did many others, including his son: “If you have an idea, start a magazine.” Bill Kristol followed that advice and in its heyday the _Weekly Standard _had

at least as good a lineup of contributors as any magazine in recent American history. Under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership it flourished, even though it lost seven-figure sums annually and its

circulation never rose much above 100,000. But its sale to Philip Anschutz in 2009 resulted in pressure to make the magazine more commercial, pressure that was resisted by Kristol and his

colleagues. When Kristol took on Trump during the 2016 presidential race, he became the leading voice of the Never-Trumper faction in the Republican camp. That was his undoing. His

proprietor supported Trump and soon after the latter was elected, Kristol was replaced as Editor-in-Chief, though the magazine continued to distance itself from the President under Kristol’s

successor, Stephen Hayes. Finally, Anschutz decided to close the _Weekly Standard_. For a Christian, as he is reported to be, to sack his staff just before Christmas undoubtedly added

insult to injury. In an valedictory column for the _New York Times_, David Brooks accused Anschutz and his right-hand man Ryan McKibben of having “murdered” the magazine: “They didn’t merely

close it because it was losing money. They seemed to have murdered it out of greed and vengeance.” The accusation is that nobody else was allowed to bid for it and that the owners harvested

the subscription list to help another publication. Whatever the truth about the demise of the _Weekly Standard _may be, magazines are mortal. Those who own them are often capricious and

their motives hard to fathom. One cannot compare the “murder” of a periodical to the killing of journalists. But the existence of a great magazine is always an asset in the conversation of

mankind. The death of such a magazine is a conversation-stopper.