March 19, 2024

The Weekly Standard, Pugnacious to the End, Will Cease Publication

Sold in 2009 to Mr. Anschutz, The Standard remained influential. But the Trump phenomenon posed a challenge. Originally denounced by Republican thought leaders like Mr. Kristol, who declared himself a supporter of the “Never Trump” movement, the president has since been embraced by his party — and by right-wing news outlets that are thriving with a diet of pro-Trump coverage.

The Weekly Standard took a different tack. The editors supported Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court picks and tax overhaul. But the magazine’s free marketeers did not cheer trade tariffs, and its foreign interventionists lamented the president’s retreat from a central role in global leadership. Criticism of a so-called deep state, a staple of Breitbart News and Fox News commentators like Sean Hannity, did not dominate its pages.

Talk of a shutdown had coursed through the magazine’s offices for days, and although a meeting with management had been scheduled for Friday, Mr. Hayes, the editor, emailed his staff beforehand to say he was still unsure of their fate.

“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,” Mr. Hayes wrote in a memo. “I’m proud that we’ve remained both conservative and independent.”

Some of the magazine’s critics on Friday delighted in its demise. “TAKE THAT YOU NEVER TRUMPERS,” Chuck Woolery, the “Love Connection” host turned Trump acolyte, wrote in a Twitter post. Breitbart News knocked the magazine as “once-influential” and a “Never-Trump publication.”

Clarity Media declined to comment beyond a formal written statement.

“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,” Mr. McKibben, the chief executive, wrote in a news release. “After careful consideration of all possible options for its future, it became clear that this was the step we needed to take.”

Some members of the magazine’s staff say they have heard that Mr. Kristol and Mr. Hayes are in touch with wealthy investors who could back a similar publication under a new banner. In the meantime, the final issue of The Weekly Standard is to be published on Monday.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/business/media/weekly-standard-closing.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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