Weekly Standard, anti-Trump conservative journal, shuts down

Owners say closure a result of changing media market, not its criticism of the US president

The company that owns The Weekly Standard, for 23 years a flagship of an interventionist and robustly pro-Israel foreign policy, is shutting it down.

Clarity Media Group said the closure was a result of a roiling media market and rejected claims that the fact that the Standard is a leading conservative outlet criticizing US President Donald Trump was a factor.

Clarity rejected efforts by the weekly’s editorial staff to find another buyer. Clarity owns another publication, the Washington Examiner, which has not been as robust as the Standard in its criticism of Trump.

The Standard was founded in 1995 by Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, and John Podhoretz. Kristol and Podhoretz, who are Jewish, are scions of the neoconservative movement.

Clarity chief executive Ryan McKibben said the news magazine “has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” and had seen double-digit declines in circulation in recent years.

“For more than 20 years The Weekly Standard has provided a valued and important perspective on political, literary and cultural issues of the day,” said McKibben.

“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.”

Kristol tweeted on Friday: “All good things come to an end. And so, after 23 years, does The Weekly Standard… We worked hard to put out a quality magazine, and we had a good time doing so. And we have much more to do.”

The magazine strongly supported the policies of president George W. Bush during his two terms in office, but has opposed Trump, notably on issues of tariffs and trade.

A recent editorial harshly criticized Trump as well as the Republicans who have gone along with the president in the face of an investigation linking him to potential criminal acts.

“It is a commonplace, in the Trump era, to say that the old criteria of decency and honor no longer appear to apply,” the magazine said in its December 10 editorial.

“The president’s mendacity is so aggressive, his malfeasance so common, that his everyday behavior no longer surprises and these days rarely elicits condemnation from other Republicans.”