Discussion for article #244503
A sad but predictable development.
Rich kids so quickly tire of their little toys, don’t they.
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If you are going to own TNR, you ought to understand that making a profit was never the point. You want a profit, open a car wash. You want to influence elite political discourse? That’s the reason to own TNR.
Digital special sauce isn’t going to change this basic condition.
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Well, shit, the problem is certainly due to a shortfall of buzzwords, as in the phrase “vertically integrated digital media company”.
They forgot to include “synergy” and “inverted revenue funnel”.
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A year ago:
I know tech, and tech has changed everything, so I know what I am doing.
Now:
I underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate.
Digital isn’t magic, dude.
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Or they break them and buy new ones
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Disruptive Innovation strikes again!
This is not all that surprising, given Mr. Hayes’ actual area of expertise…but it’s kind of sad, nonetheless.
What will the boy wonder move on to destroy next?
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This guy basically won the lottery. He hitched himself to Mark Zuckerberg, and now thinks he’s a master of the universe. Our distorted economic system allowed him to behave as if this venerable institution was just a toy, while he suffered no penalties for his own incompetence. But his mistakes did have a terrible impact on dozens of great journalists who created what value there was to the New Republic and a lesser impact on thousands of people who’s intellectual lives were enriched by this venerable institution.
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It was Dead to Me even before Boy Wonder played with it.
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Same thing happened to New Coke. The original was just fine.
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At least he chose which whale to lamprey off of.
He’s still more deserving than someone like Friedman or Brooks.
TNR improved tremendously after he bought it. Peretz had turned it into an unreadable POS.
You’ve perfectly described the what has been wrong with the publishing industry since huge conglomerate took over. All they saw was the potential for increasing profit margins without understanding why those margins were historically in the 3-5% range. Publishing isn’t about making money, it’s about preserving and creating culture for all posterity. Hughes is exactly the kind of person who thinks old means obsolete and ruins everything by trying to reinvent the wheel.
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Who is the attractive young man by Hughes side in that photo?
That’s his partner by marriage. His partner, Sean Eldridge, ran for congress in a fairly liberal district right after Hughes bought TNR. In fact, I suspect that was one of the reasons he bought TNR–to promote his partners bid in a district where a liberal publication potentially had some cache. Meanwhile Eldridge got trounced by something like 30 points.
PS: Actually, it wasn’t a liberal district. The incumbent was an R and was reelected, beating Eldridge 65-33.
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Thanks!
Josh’s piece is righ----its a failure of the modern equity model–you buy something load it up with expenses and weaken it. Plus, it was a degraded product when he bought it—Peretz had killed its cred and paid circulation. The people who left were part of a boys club who’d played by Peretz’s rules (stay away from objects of his rightward lurches) and had stuck around forever. A magazine like this needs friends (much like The Nation or National Review) or has to be nimble enough to compete in a large digital market. As a one time subscriber, I’m saddened by hardly devastated.
Rural Upstate New York Doesn’t Go for Bought and Paid For Boy Toys!
Maybe he can buy up all the sources of aspirin and hike the price up to a $100/pill? Masters of the Universe should stick to what they’re good at.