Conservative Magazine The Weekly Standard is Dead
“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with.”
![https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db0b1RQtwr0](https://c4.legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/REPORT-The-Weekly-Standard-Likely-Closing-Up-Shop-in-the-Coming-Weeks--e1543969854975.png)
Clarity Media Group, the owner of the publisher of The Weekly Standard, announced this morning that the magazine will shut down and print its last issue on December 17. From the press release:
Clarity Media Group announced today the closure of The Weekly Standard. On December 17, The Weekly Standard will publish its final edition.
“For more than twenty years The Weekly Standard has provided a valued and important perspective on political, literary and cultural issues of the day,” said Ryan McKibben, President and CEO of Clarity Media. “The magazine has been home to some of the industry’s most dedicated and talented staff and I thank them for their hard work and contributions, not just to the publication, but the field of journalism.”
The Weekly Standard was founded under News Corp and published its first issue on September 18, 1995. Clarity Media Group acquired the publication in 2009.
“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” said McKibben. “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years â with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 â made it clear that a decision had to be made. After careful consideration of all possible options for its future, it became clear that this was the step we needed to take.”
The publication has remained critical of President Donald Trump, which editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes mentioned in his note to employees:
In a note sent to staff Friday morning, Hayes referenced the difficulty conservative news organizations critical of Trump have had in recent years.
“This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics,” Hayes wrote. “Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over information, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait.”
Hayes said it was a “profound honor” to work with The Weekly Standard’s staff, and added, “I’m proud that we’ve remained both conservative and independent, providing substantive reporting and analysis based on facts, logic and reason.”
Here are some tweets from contributing editor John Podhoretz:
People at the Weekly Standard have been told to clear out their offices by 5 pm today, in case you were wondering what Clarity Media is like.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 14, 2018
Clarity Media said everybody had to leave Standard by 5, and didn’t provide boxes for people to put their stuff in.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 14, 2018
So there are non-disparagement clauses in the severance packages being given to the staffers at the Weekly Standard.
I’m not a staffer.
There will be much disparagement in this space and elsewhere, and factual disparagement as well.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 14, 2018
There were buyers. Potential buyers. In September, Clarity Media told those looking for buyers to stand down. Why would a company not wish to entertain a potential sale? Because it wanted to kill the magazine and harvest it.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 14, 2018
The murderers are Philip Anschutz and Ryan McKibben. They could have sold the Weekly Standard. They refused to. Nothing like this has ever happened in my half-century of experience with publishing.https://t.co/rNKZuLiyt8
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 14, 2018
One key thing: It actually wasn’t about Trump, or only about Trump on the margins. This was far more in the nature of a weird personal vendetta.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 14, 2018
Rumors swirled of The Weekly Standard‘s demise the first week of December. Kemberlee blogged about a story from CNN that received information from a source within the publication that the end was near.
The CNN story said The Weekly Standard attempted to find a buyer, but the leadership at the magazine “butt heads” with “MediaDC, the current publisher of the magazine and that the two parties had agreed to allow [editor-in-chief Stephen] Hayes to search for a new owner.”
Another source told The Daily Caller that they didn’t think The Weekly Standard would survive since the magazine didn’t have a budget:
“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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Comments
In honor of Bill Kristol, I will be smirking all day.
The receptionist and the janitor and the security folks are now jobless leading into Christmas.
Thanks a lot, Millionaire Bill.
Guess he’ll be partying with the just as creepy Christine Ford.
Wow, who would have thought Ford’s Halloween Fright Disguise was way way way more attractive than she really is!
*BOAT HORN*
Ahoy!
In the world of capitalism’s “creative destruction”, entities are born and die. IF they are allowed to by BIG GOVERNMENT. It is a healthy process, like evolution of the fittest.
But ideas, and those who can speak them, are not silenced. They are a lot more durable.
Whatever that means. More self-serving wind-baggery.
More of the universe of ideas that go whoooooosing over your empty head unseen, and unheard.
If you get in his way when he says something that doesn’t include a juvenile insult, that’s on you.
Into the dustbin of history.
Yes, but forgotten to our detriment.
Remember this rino rat, or we’ll be doomed to repeat him.
You are sooo pissed.
Good riddance, may their funeral be soon and brief followed by a deep burial.
Oh, if everyone is to be out by 5:00 pm, I would make sure Bill Kristol was gone by 4:59 pm.
Just for good measure, will someone put a steak in their heart?
stake
I’d like a Steak, thank you.
Medium Rare, please. Baked Potato with Butter and Bacon on the side.
That would be a lot more kinder, gentler, and human than what’s there now, wouldn’t it.
Warmer too!!!!!!!
Snark.
Conservative?
NeverTrump road like. Love it. His dad got it, but he did not.
Watch:
Arguing the World
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129758/?ref_=nm_knf_i1
how did road kill turn in to road like?
It’s the Deep State!
“It’s Festivus miracle”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYi-99klXAs
Festivus for the rest of us!
“Merry Festivus Everyone!!!!!”
I never liked Fred Barnes, either.
“didn’t provide boxes for people to put their stuff in”
Oh, the humanity!
I don’t wish anyone to lose their jobs before Christmas …
… but wow these bitter tweets show no acknowledgment of how loathed they are by their supposed audience. Free market supporters rail against the free market. They sound just like Democrats.
If there is a market for your product, knuckleheads, go start a new magazine! (Pro tip: there is, but it’s limited to your peers in DC)
Sweet karma, swing low. Good riddance and DLTDHYOTWO.
How well did that work for Megyn Kelly?
I think very well. Didn’t she settle with NBC for $30 million in salary and bonuses?
Less “Settle” and more “Enforced the terms of her contract,” which was well written to protect her from just such a stupid corporate backlash to something she might say off-hand, which is exactly why they hired her in the first instance.
This is why we treasure Legal Insurrection more than ever. Professor works tirelessly to keep things going by providing great content. Kudos to him.
The leadership of the Conservative movement was largely taken over by the Establishment, in this country, back in the early 1990s. This when it became obvious that the Republican Party, which tried to appear to be the bastion of conservatism had no intention of living up to any of the conservative planks in its platform. This is when the Conservatives largely abandoned the party, except for the Establishment conservative elite. As early as 2010, the political dynamic, in this country, was rapidly changing from liberal-conservative and Democrat-Republican to Establishment-anti-Establishment. And a lot of conservatives joined the anti-Establishment cause. And, this left the Establishment conservative elite with no audience. No audience means no money coming into conservative publications such as the Weekly Standard. When your whole existence depends upon a specific customer base, ignoring that customers base usually proves disastrous.
The Weekly Standard will not be missed.
Yes, well, if anybody expects people to shed even insincere crocodile tears about the Weekly Standard dropping dead, boy, are THEY ever in for a surprise. They did it to themselves LONG before this by not giving the twit who was running the show the heave-ho LONG before things came to this. Also, Ms. Chastain, your article title is more than a little off. CONSERVATIVE magazine? Hahahahah….giggle…snort….ahahhaa….Wait, you are SERIOUS?? You REALLY need to get out more.
Another magazine I never purchased or read crumbling. I’m beginning to think I have more power than I imagined.
If only Bill Kristol’s television career would die! Smug a-hole.
He is a useful idiot for the left, so he will be around until he is no longer useful.
“They could have sold the Weekly Standard. They refused to.”
Uh, ok. So, regroup, incorporate, and venture capital a new publication with the talent tossed out of TWS. Call it ‘RINO Recriminations,’ ‘Creased Pants Capitulation,’ etc.
But you guys would rather lounge around on the cruise ship, sip foo-foo drinks with umbrellas, paid for by another sugar daddy.
*BOAT HORN* Ahoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUSd_RYnxAY
Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford (1959)
Saw this linked at AoSHQ. After listening to it (haven’t heard it in a long time) realized most perfect song ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MYsii4DZY
HAH! I think Captain Bill came through and down-voted us all.
“I think Captain Bill…”
Odd name for “Ragspierre”.
Good riddance to a poor bird cage liner. The parrots have revolted against the revolting.
What was the personal vendetta Podhoretz hints?
I for one enjoy reading a lot of pieces that are well-researched, well-argued, and well-written that may not glorify Trump. But that isn’t what I found always in the WS pieces, especially once Trump won the nomination. And once he became the President, it became even more shrill. And condescending to those who supported him.
But make no mistake, there is money to be made in being emotionally and fanatically anti-Trump. Plenty of outlets are seeing greater revenues. Plenty of people who “say” they are conservative or supposedly have “moved to the other side” find it lucrative. If the WS failed to survive economically, which may not entirely be the case, it is’t because you cannot be anti-Trump.
#GetWokeGoBroke
no great loss, and anyone who still w*rked there and didn’t already have their space cleared out was an idiot.
or delusional…
Bill Kristol and his self centered, sanctimonious nevertrump pals killed TWS and now the janitor and the receptionist and the security folks et al have no job leading into Christmas.
GFY Bill.
Nobody but nobody is buying into cuckism.
“This was far more in the nature of a weird personal vendetta.”
Yep, that’s a spot-on description of Kristol’s TDS.
I found the following links illuminating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWJSKhEwjy8
Got video from this article:
https://dailycaller.com/2017/02/08/bill-kristol-says-lazy-white-working-class-should-be-replaced-by-new-americans/
I have no sympathy for him.
Too bad he never sees himself and those like him as part of the problem – just us sluggards.
The Weekly Standard wasn’t murdered. It committed suicide.
It was clearly murdered. Don’t you read?
Although Anschutz and Clarity might not have murdered Weekly Standard for their fratricidal nevertrumper attacks, Kristol and his band of active resisters made it very easy for the republican and conservative worlds to not give a darn that it was in fact going down in flames. Kristol made it very easy to accept that Weekly Standard was going away. If he hadn’t, they might have had a groundswell of support backing them up. In the end, the reality they created bit them in the rear.
http://patterico.com/2018/12/15/president-trump-good-riddance-to-the-weekly-standard/
@readDonaldTrump is a REAL asshole. As are his cult followers.
Clinton in 2020. It’s not too late for you to donate.
@readDonaldTrump is a REAL asshole. As are his cult followers.
The cult is the conservative #NeverTrumptards who view him as a demon to justify their failure to produce a better candidate in 16. This failure led to Trump’s election and a permanent case of butt hurt among the #NeverTrumptards. They have to lie about the cult nature of his supporters because otherwise they would have to admit that it was their failure to find a viable candidate led to his election by people who wanted to save conservativism. Trump supporters voted for him, not because they saw him as a god, but because they thought he was better than Hillary. He has exceeded their expectations and they continue to support him.
The only assholes are the conservatards who were willing to elect Hillary to defeat Trump, thus proving that they aren’t conservatives.
Did that answer your question?
First, your delusions are manifest AGAIN. Nobody asked a question.
Second, you proved my point about T-rump cultists. You are incapable of ANY appropriate critique of your cult leader, and cannot allow any from an American who is not part of your cult.
Third, nobody in my camp holds that Duh Donald is a “demon”. He’s just a pathetic…and dangerous…thin-skinned, deeply pathological narcissist, as demonstrated by his assholic tweet. A very deeply sick human, who you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge.
Of course you asked a question. You post was a test to see if, after a few weeks of god behavior, you could revert to the old rags without anyone commenting.
Calling Trump’s followers assholes, as you did, is not a critique. It is a 60 year old acting like an unruly 5 year old who has yet to learn manners and respect for others opinions.
Everyone in your camp holds that Trump is a demon. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t treat him like they do.
you rote:
He’s just a pathetic…and dangerous…thin-skinned, deeply pathological narcissist, as demonstrated by his assholic tweet.
Many Trump supporters here think that that pretty much describes you.
Trump’s comment on WS et al was right on target.
Excellent demonstration of T-rump cult worship, lies, and delusion.
Thanks, as always!
President Donald J. Trump’s Accomplishments List:
http://www.magapill.com/