We’re Gonna Need a Smaller Violin

It appears taht Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard is at risk of closure:

Things don’t look good for The Weekly Standard. Yesterday, CNN’s Oliver Darcy reported that the conservative magazine may shutter after sparring between its leadership and owners MediaDC, who told the magazine’s editor, Stephen Hayes, that he could court potential buyers, then went back on the pledge. While MediaDC’s parent company wouldn’t be drawn publicly last night, MediaDC’s chairman, Ryan McKibben, has reportedly requested a meeting with Hayes next week. Ominously, Darcy reports, he’s requested that the entire Standard staff be made available immediately afterward.

The Standard has steadfastly opposed the Trump presidency, making it a relative rarity in conservative media circles. Its anti-Trump stance—and stated commitment to fact-driven and nuanced debate—helps explain why CNN’s scoop elicited such widespread concern in the mediasphere. On the right, Noah Rothman, an associate editor at Commentary magazine, tweeted, “This would be a disaster. The Weekly Standard is indispensable.” Further left, Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein called CNN’s story “terrible news.” The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer added, “I’m obviously not the target audience for The Weekly Standard but its output in the Trump era has mostly avoided the bizarre tone of Trumpist sycophancy dominating much of conservative media and losing it would be bad.”

No.

The fact that The Weekly Standard is right, for all the wrong reasons, for once, does not justified its continued existence.

Even now, as a “fact checker” for Facebook, it continues its role as a pox on public discourse and a welfare program for overpriviliged conservatives.

The hand-wringing for a publication that was begun to pursue Bill Clinton’s penis and to advocate for destabilizing wars throughout the world does not deserve support for anyone who might consider themselves a journalist.

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