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ThinkProgress, the influential news site that has grown in importance in the shadow of the Bush administration and has helped define progressivity in the Obama years, is in the process of close its doors.
The outlet, which served as an independent editorial project of the Democratic Party's think-tank Center for American Progress, will halt ongoing operations on Friday and be converted into a site that CAP researchers can access. CAP executives were looking for a buyer to take control of ThinkProgress, which has been in a deficit for years. According to some sources, three serious buyers could be among the recent buyers. But in a statement to the staff, Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress, said the site was ultimately unable to find a client.
"Since we could not find any new publisher, we have no choice but to integrate the ThinkProgress website with CAP 's broader online presence," he says. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of politics, politics and current events through the prism of CAP and CAP existing action. Staff experts, "said Nayak," Discussions on how to do this are just beginning, but we will seek to reinvent it as a different platform for incremental change. "
A dozen ThinkProgress employees will lose their jobs, said a CAP program assistant, as many staff members had already gone to work elsewhere and some were integrated with the broader CAP program infrastructure. Layoffs will receive severance pay until the end of November and a health care coverage covering the entire year, said the CAP assistant.
Regarding the current website, thinkprogress.org will continue to exist. But this will no longer work as an independent company focused on the original reporting. According to Mr Nayak, instead, he will be relocated to "the wider online presence of the CAP" as a sounding board for policy and policy analysis by CAP staff experts. and CAP Action.
"Discussions on how to do it are just beginning," said Nayak, "but we will seek to reinvent it as a different platform for incremental change."
Nayak said that ClimateProgress, an independent blog before merging with ThinkProgress, will be picked up by its founder, Joe Romm.
At its peak, there were few significant pieces of real estate online, progressing shamelessly, as ThinkProgress. The site combined original reports with an attack mentality to target Republican lawmakers and conservative ideas. The list of former graduates currently working in politics and journalism is a testament to its success. The list includes Faiz Shakir, who now serves as Campaign Director for Senator Bernie Sanders; Amanda Terkel, Huffington Post bureau chief for the Department of Defense; Nico Pitney, NowThis Policy Director; Alex Seitz-Wald, one of the best journalists of NBC News; Ali Gharib, editor-in-chief at The Intercept; and Matt Yglesias, one of the founding members of Vox.
But the site suffered from editorial frictions during the Obama years, when visions of some staff clashed with the more general political demands of the PAC and its donors. At one point, the CAP CEO at the time Jen Palmieri wrote a guest post on Yglesias' ThinkProgress blog to publish a Third Way defense after Yglesias criticized the Democratic-centrist group. Elsewhere, there has been dissension and tension over critical ThinkProgress positions with Israel.
In the fall of 2015, ThinkProgress employees were unionized, including to formalize editorial independence from CAP leaders. And there was a feeling that the election of Donald Trump in 2016 would trigger a wave of materials to study and cover for staff. In 2018, the site called upon CNN alum Jodi Enda to serve as editor-in-chief, as part of what was portrayed as a move to more original reporting.
But editorial tensions persisted. In April, the website published an article and video about Sanders' personal wealth, which had grown in recent years due to the sale of books. The presidential candidate responded with a heartbreaking letter to the CAP to accept corporate donations and link the published story to the candidacy of these donors.
In early May, sources told The Daily Beast that the ThinkProgress Writers' Union and the author of the story were concerned about how Enda handled the event, including the changes she had made without it. initial authorization of the author. Enda stated that she had apologized publicly and privately for not notifying the author before proceeding with the editing, although she felt that the editing was justified.
The financial situation of the site has deteriorated. Internal documents obtained by The Daily Beast showed that ThinkProgress was facing a gap of $ 3 million between revenues and expenses in 2019, of which $ 350,000 was due to a shortfall in advertising revenues.
In private, staff members and some former students argued that, with some budget reductions, the CAP could continue to fund operations by reallocating donor money. The staff of ThinkProgress already had more than 40 before their number began to decline this year. And within these neighborhoods, CAP leaders have been so worried about the current state of financial distress when the site has been living in limbo for most of its existence.
However, CAP officials said the long-term outlook for ThinkProgress was dire. A few months ago, they reported that they were looking to sell the site to a prospective buyer.
According to Mr. Nayak, CAP has "had conversations with more than 20 potential new publishers, including several extended dialogues," but he added that "big trends" in digital news media "have proven insurmountable. to find a new home at ThinkProgress.
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