In 1949, Ascoli joined James Reston to found The Reporter (magazine), an influential, liberal magazine for some two decades (1949-1968).
Contributors included: Dean Acheson, James Baldwin, McGeorge Bundy, Isaac Deutscher, Theodore Draper, John Kenneth Galbraith, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Irving Howe, Henry Kissinger, Irving Kristol, Boris Pasternak, Eugene V. Rostow, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Peter Viereck, and Edmund Wilson.