Under his editorship, the magazine helped shape Rudy Giuliani's agenda as mayor of New York City.

[2][3] Before that, Magnet was a longtime member of the Board of Editors at Fortune magazine, a publication for which he wrote numerous articles on social policy, management, and finance, in addition to publishing essays and op-eds in The New Criterion, The Claremont Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among other publications.

[4] President George W. Bush has cited Magnet's 1993 The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass, as a profound influence on his approach to public policy.

[9] Of Magnet's first book, Dickens and the Social Order (1985), the New York Times stated: “Perhaps he will consider writing a sequel; even if it turned out to be only half as good as Dickens and the Social Order, it would be very well worth reading.”[10] In November 2008, President Bush awarded Magnet the National Humanities Medal "for scholarship and visionary influence in renewing our national culture of compassion.

He has combined literary and cultural history with a profound understanding of contemporary urban life to examine new ways of relieving poverty and renewing civic institutions.