Diane Straus, Publisher of Liberal Policy Magazines, Dies at 66<br />Ms. Straus’s mother, the former Ellen Sulzberger, helped run WMCA<br />and founded Call for Action, the nation’s first telephone help line for individuals trying to solve problems they had encountered with government officials, corporations and landlords.<br />Ms. Straus had been president and publisher of The American Prospect when she joined<br />Washington Monthly in 2008, nearly 40 years after it was founded by Charles Peters.<br />After college, she held editing jobs at New York magazine<br />and The Village Voice before being named publisher of one of her family’s newspapers, The Cranford Citizen and Chronicle in New Jersey.<br />At the time, the magazine was in danger of going out of business: Markos Kounalakis, Ms. Straus’s<br />immediate predecessor, had provided the magazine with financing but had moved on.<br />“A decade ago, foundations didn’t want to interfere in the market,” Ms. Straus once told The Chronicle of Philanthropy.<br />Diane Straus, the publisher of two liberal policy magazines who was also a championship<br />platform tennis player, died on Wednesday at her home in Washington.<br />“Diane didn’t want to pitch ideology,” Mr. Leonard said in a telephone interview.
