REPORT: The Weekly Standard Likely Closing Up Shop in the Coming Weeks

REPORT: The Weekly Standard Likely Closing Up Shop in the Coming Weeks

Tuesday night, CNN published a story based on a source inside The Weekly Standard suggesting the publication’s future is uncertain.

BREAKING: Multiple sources tell me that neocon magazine @weeklystandard is expected to close its operations in a few weeks. It had lost many subscribers since the 2016 election as its #NeverTrumper editors @BillKristol @stephenfhayes @SykesCharlie publicly aligned with the Left.

— Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson) December 4, 2018

From CNN’s scoop:

Scoop: The fate of @weeklystandard is uncertain, Editor-in-Chief Stephen Hayes told staff in a series of phone calls today. The magazine's precarious position comes after its leadership spent months searching for a buyer after butting heads w/current owner https://t.co/RRBH0hxBWl

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 4, 2018

Employees at the magazine are bracing for the worst, multiple people familiar with the matter tell me. Also worth noting, @weeklystandard's traffic has increased in the Trump era. https://t.co/RRBH0hxBWl

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 4, 2018

As CNN tells it, The Weekly Standard has been shopping for, but been unable to secure a buyer after TWS’s leadership continued to “butt heads” with “MediaDC, the current publisher of the magazine and that the two parties had agreed to allow Hayes to search for a new owner.”

However, MediaDC recently informed The Weekly Standard’s leadership that the company was no longer interested in a sale, the people said.

Instead, Ryan McKibben, the chairman of MediaDC, asked to meet with Hayes in a meeting tentatively scheduled for late next week, the people said. McKibben, they said, also requested the entire staff of The Weekly Standard be made available following the meeting.

That request, coupled with MediaDC’s Monday announcement that its other conservative news organization, The Washington Examiner, would be expanding its magazine into a weekly publication, has left The Weekly Standard’s leadership worrying about the future of the magazine.

Employees at the magazine are bracing for the worst, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN.

Alex Rosenwald, a spokesperson for MediaDC, told CNN in a phone call on Tuesday morning that he was not aware of The Weekly Standard’s situation. Rosenwald said he was focused only on the marketing for the just-announced Washington Examiner Magazine. Rosenwald did not respond to an email or phone call on Tuesday afternoon requesting comment after CNN had learned of Hayes’ phone calls to staffers.

However, after this story was originally published, a spokesperson for Clarity Media Group, Inc., the parent company of MediaDC, released a statement to CNN.

“It is no secret that news organizations across the U.S. are dealing with an evolving business landscape,” the statement said. “The Weekly Standard is dealing with these same issues. Clarity Media has been exploring a number of possibilities regarding the future of The Weekly Standard. At this time, Clarity does not have any news to share about its evaluation process.”
Hayes did not respond to emails on Monday and Tuesday requesting comment.

The Daily Caller‘s sources indicate the situation is far more dire and that they don’t expect The Weekly Standard to exist beyond December 14th, saying, “There is no budget for it AT ALL.”

“I don’t expect it to exist after December 14, 2018,” one editor at the magazine told TheDCNF. “There is no budget for it AT ALL.”

News broke Tuesday afternoon from CNN that the magazine’s editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes addressed staff about the magazine’s troubles, but did not go into detail about what the future might hold.

“Supposedly Steve Hayes doesn’t even know [beyond what CNN reported],” the staffer said.

The Weekly Standard was founded in 1995 by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes. Originally owned by NewsCorp, the magazine was eventually sold in 2009 to billionaire Philip Anschutz. Individuals close to the magazine told TheDCNF that Anschutz was growing frustrated with the direction of the magazine.

A former employee of The Washington Examiner, which is a member of the same parent company as The Weekly Standard, told TheDCNF the office had been hearing murmurings Monday about the magazine’s fate. That employee told TheDCNF there had been talk that some of The Weekly Standard would be folded into The Washington Examiner.

“They’re either closing or they’re folding into a page of the Washington Examiner,” said the former Examiner employee.

Yet a current editor at The Weekly Standard disputed that possibility.

“I don’t think ‘folded’ is the right word. It sounds more like get rid of us entirely,” the editor said.

A spokesperson for Anschutz did not comment.

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