Wanted to know more about this, thought some others might as well.
The Weekly Standard, conservative outlet that criticized Trump, to shut down
The Weekly Standard is shutting down, owner Clarity Media Group announced Friday, ending one of the only conservative outlets that consistently stood in opposition to the style and politics of President Donald Trump.
The magazine’s final issue, which was completed Thursday, will publish on Dec. 17, Clarity said in a news release. The decision was communicated to staff members at a 10:30 a.m. meeting.Rumors had been swirling about The Weekly Standard since Clarity announced that its sister publication, the Washington Examiner, would expand with a weekly conservative magazine with national distribution. With the new Examiner product positioned to take over The Weekly Standard’s corner, management decided to shutter the journal, rather than sell it or allow it to exist in some other form that could create a potential competitor to the newly expanded Examiner.
One reason many observers speculated that Clarity might want to shutter The Weekly Standard rather than sell it was to permit the Examiner to make use of its subscriber list. A Clarity spokesperson confirmed Friday that subscribers to The Weekly Standard will now, in fact, receive the Washington Examiner instead. “Clarity Media Group has an obligation to fulfill all active subscriptions to The Weekly Standard. We will do so with the new, redesigned and expanded Washington Examiner that will launch on January 1,” the spokesperson said in a statement. Asked whether Weekly Standard subscribers who preferred not to receive the Examiner would be offered a refund on the remaining portion of their subscription, the spokesperson declined to answer.Kristol, who two years ago moved from his editor-in-chief role to be an editor at large, has publicly said he intends to keep the Standard’s voice and style alive in some form. Editorial leaders from the magazine have been in discussion in recent days over what a possible successor publication might look like, two people familiar with the talks said. One possibility could be to expand a small conservative site called The Bulwark, which is published by the Defending Democracy Together Institute, a nonprofit with which Kristol is involved. He and Weekly Standard contributing editor Charlie Sykes already sit on the editorial board of the site, which currently lists just two editorial employees.