 Originally started by a group of anti-Vietnam war activists, MERIP began in 1971 by releasing an irregularly scheduled six-page newsletter called the MERIP Reports.In 1973, the group began releasing the "Reports" on a scheduled basis.According to JSTOR, "The Middle East Report" "is the foremost U.S. magazine of critical analysis on the Middle East", with 25,000 US and global readers and more than 700 educational and institutional subscriptions.