New York (CNN Business) The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of President Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, its owner Clarity Media Group announced Friday morning. The magazine will publish its final issue on December 17.

The announcement came after the magazine's editor-in-chief, Stephen Hayes, met privately with Ryan McKibben, the chief executive and chairman of Clarity Media Group, a media holding company owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz.

"For more than twenty years The Weekly Standard has provided a valued and important perspective on political, literary and cultural issues of the day," McKibben said in a press release. "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."

Employees were told at an all staff meeting, which CNN obtained an audio recording of, that they would be paid through the end of the year, and that afterward they would receive severance which would range in scale depending on factors like seniority. To receive severance, however, employees would need to sign a strict non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreement.

"I know it's an emotional day, but I want to tell you don't get on social media and attack anybody because it will put your severance in jeopardy," McKibben told employees in the meeting.

Read More</s>The Weekly Standard, a conservative opinion magazine turned Never-Trump publication, will shut down, according to a Friday announcement from the publisher’s owner, Clarity Media Group.

Earlier Friday, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes sat down with MediaDC chairman Ryan McKibben to discuss the magazine’s fate. Hayes sent a letter to employees notifying them of this morning’s meeting with McKibben, saying he was “not sure what today will bring”

“This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics,” Hayes’ letter to staffers read. “Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over information, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait.”

Further, the magazine’s editor-in-chief said it was “profound honor” to work The Weekly Standard‘s roster of reporters, adding, “I’m proud that we’ve remained both conservative and independent, providing substantive reporting and analysis based on facts, logic and reason.”

The magazine will post its final edition on December 17.

“All good things come to an end. And so, after 23 years, does The Weekly Standard,” co-founder Bill Kristol wrote on Twitter. “I want to express my gratitude to our readers and my admiration for my colleagues. We worked hard to put out a quality magazine, and we had a good time doing so. And we have much more to do. Onward!”

Earlier December, Hayes told staffers that he was uncertain about the magazine’s future amid sagging readership and a fruitless attempt to find a buyer.

“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” McKibben said in a statement, obtained by TheWrap. “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years — with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 — made it clear that a decision had to be made,” added McKibben. “After careful consideration of all possible options for its future, it became clear that this was the step we needed to take.”

News of The Weekly Standard’s shuttering comes after its parent company announced that the Washington Examiner – also owned by Clarity Media Group – will relaunch its weekly print magazine with nationwide distribution and larger editorial focus.

Media observers floated a possible merger between the two publications.

The Weekly Standard, a once-influential neoconservative magazine, was co-founded by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes in 1995 and published by Newscorp.</s>Last month, Kelly Jane Torrance, deputy managing editor of the Weekly Standard, provided some commentary for i24NEWS, an Israeli outfit. Savvy publications generally use such TV “hits” to promote their logos, the better to boost Web traffic, cachet, brand, etc. Here’s the branding that i24NEWS viewers beheld in the office space behind Torrance:

Yes, that’s the Washington Examiner’s logo behind Torrance. Confusion of this sort will not linger. On Friday, the ownership of the Weekly Standard announced the highly expected closing of the magazine. “For more than twenty years The Weekly Standard has provided a valued and important perspective on political, literary and cultural issues of the day,” Ryan McKibben, president and CEO of Clarity Media, said in a news release. “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.” Noting that the magazine has been buffeted by the same forces destroying other segments of U.S. media, McKibben added: “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years — with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 — made it clear that a decision had to be made. After careful consideration of all possible options for its future, it became clear that this was the step we needed to take.”

[Conservatism needs a new Weekly Standard untainted by Trump]

Prior to the meeting in which the plug received its official pulling, Editor in Chief Stephen F. Hayes told staff in an email: “This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics. Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over information, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait. I’ll spare you the soapbox and the sanctimony. To put it simply: I’m proud that we’ve remained both conservative and independent, providing substantive reporting and analysis based on facts, logic and reason.”

A little bit of history: The Weekly Standard launched in 1995 with money from mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. under the guidance of founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes. In 2009, Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz bought the publication and ran it under Clarity Media Group. McKibben boasted that the Weekly Standard was “one of the most highly respected publications of public policy and political commentary in America.”

There was just one complication: Anschutz’s Clarity Media also owned the Washington Examiner, which was then a strange beast. Launched in 2005, it combined solid local news with conservative opinion columnists focused on national issues. The mix made no sense whatsoever. Nor did the business model, which involved free-of-charge saturation delivery of a conservative-tilted newspaper onto the lawns of some of the country’s most liberal communities. Arlington residents revolted over the delivery scheme.

But the Washington Examiner didn’t have to make sense: It was funded by an oddball mogul. This was the company’s baby, a grand project poised to take root in as many as 60 cities across the country. Instead, losses took root. Local journalism a decade ago wasn’t much more profitable than it is today.

In 2013, the Washington Examiner bagged the local stuff and retooled its shop to cover national politics and policy, along with a continued commitment to conservative opinion. Oh, but there was a problem: The same company had bought the Weekly Standard four years prior. Wasn’t there a problematic overlap going on here? Then-editor Stephen G. Smith (who has since left the company) told the Erik Wemple Blog in March 2013:

In the years since, the brains around Anschutz have come to see something far different in the Weekly Standard: a subscription list. On Dec. 3, the company announced a relaunch of the Washington Examiner. While the print version has been available only to highflying decision-makers, the new Washington Examiner, noted the release, would seek a “nationwide subscriber footprint" with 44 issues per year. “Over the years, we’ve frequently been asked if individuals outside of the Beltway could subscribe to the publication,” said McKibben. “With this expansion and relaunch, our aim is for the new, national Washington Examiner to build on its position as a leader in providing a conservative perspective on the events of the day.”

How important was it to Anschutz & Co. to clear the playing field for the Washington Examiner? Important enough that the owners declined to sell the Weekly Standard to an outside group. Better to shutter it, cannibalize it. “They’ve pretty much made clear that they will not sell the magazine even though there have been several expressions of serious interest,” said an informed source who, like others interviewed for this post, didn’t want to be named while the fate of the magazine was in limbo. Countered company spokeswoman Hannah Rimar: “Clarity explored a range of different possibilities for the future of the publication over the past year. A number of conversations were held with a variety of different parties about their interest in acquiring the publication but none led to any viable offers.”

This month, after it announced the Washington Examiner re-relaunch, the company responded this way to inquiries about the impact on the Weekly Standard: "It is no secret that news organizations across the U.S. are dealing with an evolving business landscape. The Weekly Standard is dealing with these same issues. Clarity Media has been exploring a number of possibilities regarding the future of The Weekly Standard. At this time, Clarity does not have any news to share about its evaluation process.”

Thus began the death watch of another vital news organ. Publications such as the Weekly Standard exist at the pleasure of donors, or someone rich. That’s just the reality of political journals and magazines, whether they’re on the right — like National Review and the American Spectator — or whether they’re on the left — like the New Republic. Publishers can send out mailers, launch cruises, pitch ads to prominent lobbies, but the reality always comes back colored in red. Conventional wisdom holds that a conservative journal does better under a Democratic president and vice versa, but former Weekly Standard publisher Terry Eastland tells the Erik Wemple Blog: “The conventional wisdom is not wrong, but when they do better, they’re doing bad.” Eastland declined to comment specifically on the Weekly Standard.

So Clarity Media is bailing on a money-losing proposition. According to sources, the Weekly Standard’s annual losses fall in the seven-figure range — generally between $2 million and $5 million per year. The goal of the business side has always been to keep that number as low as possible, so as to avoid becoming a problem for the owner. During the Murdoch years — 1995 to 2009 — staffers report a smooth ride. Though Murdoch was famous for keeping an eye on the computer screens of his tabloid editors, the Weekly Standard operated with a glorious autonomy. The founders secured provisions in their contracts for editorial independence. “Rupert was great. He never interfered,” says a knowledgeable source.

“I had a very good time there and the working conditions were, I don’t know, hospitable, supportive, whatever word you want to use,” recalls Matthew Rees, a former staff writer. That environment allowed the founders to carve out a distinct weekly journal. There was editorializing — neocon editorializing that cheered on the overseas projection of U.S. power and the disastrous Iraq War in particular; there were features; there was cultural commentary and book reviews; and there was spectacular writing and the occasional stinker. It was kind of an alt-weekly for conservative politics.

According to informed sources, the new owner never really got that dimension of the Weekly Standard — that is, the magazine’s whimsical side and the longform work of Weekly Standard eminences such as Matt Labash and Andrew Ferguson.

It did, however, subsidize the title for nearly a decade. With meddling, of course. Weekly Standard insiders say that Clarity was forever cramming the latest Internet trend down the throats of managers at the magazine, in an effort to goose the publication’s Web traffic. The directives met with opposition from editors. Thus the unflattering reference in Hayes’s memo to “clickbait.”

Left intact was the Weekly Standard’s editorial independence, which it used famously to state the empirical — that President Trump was and is corrupt and incapable of executive assertion. In the remarkable splintering of conservative media over the past three years, the magazine has distinguished itself on this front with editorials and features that savage the Republican president. For instance, here’s the conclusion to a recent editorial on Trump’s worsening legal straits:

Sounds a lot like the sort of material you might find on the editorial page of The Post or the New York Times. The workings of integrity are marvelous.

Early coverage of Weekly Standard’s end explored the possibility that its end is related to its stance on Trump. Rimar responded to such talk this way: “This was a business decision. Any attempt to politicize it ignores the realities about The Weekly Standard’s unresolved financial struggles that began well before the current administration took office.” But subscriptions have gone down in recent years, including a 10 percent drop between 2016 and 2017. According to a magazine insider, the cancellations started raining down in the spring of 2016, as Trump was closing in on the Republican nomination. “There was probably the sense that our readership, the Weekly Standard readership, was more in line with the editors, but it turned out to be more mainstream Republicans watching Fox,” says the insider.

Now the folks at the Washington Examiner will be getting more attention from ownership. They, too, are running a money-losing organization, according to informed sources. This is the third incarnation of the Washington Examiner, and let’s hope that it’s more durable than the first two.

Clinton Foundation raises objections to reporting of the Hill’s John Solomon</s>Conservative magazine The Weekly Standard is closing down after 23 years.

The publisher, Clarity Media Group, is citing fewer subscribers as the reason. The Weekly Standard was often critical of President Donald Trump.

Founded by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes and backed by media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 1995, it was acquired by Clarity Media Group in 2009.

Clarity Media President and CEO Ryan McKibben said in a statement that the magazine had double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013.

Denver-based Clarity also owns the Washington Examiner magazine, weekly magazine Colorado Politics and daily newspaper Colorado Springs Gazette.</s>The Weekly Standard, a conservative news outlet known for being unabashedly critical of President Donald Trump, announced Friday it is closing its doors after over two decades.

Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes tweeted: “I am profoundly disappointed in the decision to close The Weekly Standard. For nearly a quarter century TWS has provided an unapologetically conservative and fiercely independent voice on American culture and public affairs. The voice is needed now more than at anytime in our previous 23 years.”

Hayes wrote in a message to employees obtained by CNN, “This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics.”

“Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over information, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait,” he continued. “I’m proud that we’ve remained both conservative and independent, providing substantive reporting and analysis based on facts, logic and reason.”

Co-founder and editor-at-large Bill Kristol added: “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.”

Politico noted that Kristol, a regular guest commentator on MSNBC, became one of the more prominent faces in the “Never Trump” ranks during the 2016 Republican primary.

He was among those adding his name to National Review’s list of conservatives against then-candidate Trump.

Kristol’s animus carried over into the Trump administration, as exemplified by an October 2017 Twitter battle with Fox News political analyst Brit Hume.

Hume described Kristol’s thread of tweets as the “never-Trump creed in full rhetorical flight.”

In his tweets, the editor charged that conservatives were standing on the sidelines as Trump destroyed the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

CNN reported, based on “people familiar with the matter,” that the leadership of The Weekly Standard had butted heads with MediaDC, the publisher of the magazine, which is owned by Clarity Media Group.

Hayes and Kristol reportedly asked for the opportunity to seek out new investors for the news outlet, but Clarity ultimately decided to close it down instead.

The company, which also owns the Washington Examiner, is said to have wanted to retain The Weekly Standard’s subscriber list to support the launch of a new Examiner weekly magazine.

Clarity released a statement on Friday announcing The Weekly Standard’s last issue will be on Monday.

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

“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” McKibben said. “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years — with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 — made it clear that a decision had to be made.

“After careful consideration of all possible options for its future, it became clear that this was the step we needed to take.”

The New York Times reported that Hayes and Kristol are hoping to launch a publication similar to The Weekly Standard under a new banner.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine critical of the Trump administration, is closing after a 23-year run, its parent company said Friday.

The D.C.-based publication, which helped shape conservative thought and rose to prominence during the George W. Bush administration, stood out among conservative outlets for its steadfast opposition to the Trump presidency. Co-founder William Kristol, who edited the magazine until late 2016, called himself a “Never Trumper.”

The final edition of the magazine will publish on Dec. 17, said Clarity Media Group Inc., the owner of Weekly Standard publisher MediaDC. Weekly Standard subscriptions will be turned into subscriptions to sister magazine Washington Examiner, which will be redesigned and expanded on Jan. 1, Clarity Media said.

The Washington Examiner was described by a Weekly Standard staffer as “friendlier to Trump” but not a cheerleader. A spokeswoman for Clarity Media declined to comment on that observation.

Clarity Media CEO Ryan McKibben said in a statement that the financial performance of The Weekly Standard over the past five years “made it clear that a decision had to be made.” He said the publication “has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with.”

Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard’s executive editor and also a founder, said the publication’s financial issues stemmed in part from its stance on President Trump. “We’ve discovered that criticism of Trump affects circulation negatively,” Mr. Barnes said in an interview. “That was definitely a factor.”

Mr. McKibben said The Weekly Standard’s subscriber base shrank by double digits in percentage terms “all but one year since 2013.” The magazine claims a total of 90,000 subscribers, according to the MediaDC website.

John Podhoretz, a Weekly Standard founder and contributing editor, on Friday tweeted that the magazine’s owner had agreed to let editor Steve Hayes find a buyer and that a New York venture-capital firm was willing to broker a sale but Mr. McKibben later instructed Mr. Hayes to cease all contact with the venture-capital firm.

“Never in the annals of American publishing have I heard of such a thing,” Mr. Podhoretz wrote, stating that Clarity Media owner Philip Anschutz and Mr. McKibben “wouldn’t even entertain AN OFFER.”

The Clarity Media spokeswoman said the company had “explored a range of different possibilities for the future of the publication over the past year. A number of conversations were held with a variety of different parties about their interest in acquiring the publication but none led to any viable offers.”

Mr. Podhoretz, who is editor of Commentary magazine, declined to comment further. Mr. Anschutz, a billionaire entrepreneur, and Mr. Hayes couldn’t be reached for comment, and the Clarity Media spokeswoman said Mr. McKibben wasn’t available for further comment.

The Weekly Standard, first published in September 1995 by News Corp, has provided both national and international coverage, and attracted some of the country’s leading conservative journalists. It was bought by Clarity Media in 2009. News Corp is the parent of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones.

Mr. Barnes, one of The Weekly Standard’s founders, said he believes the publication will be remembered as a conservative magazine that was livelier than most, well written, and one that identified with the “younger conservative forces” in the Republican Party.

“We supported tax reform, Paul Ryan, and an aggressive foreign policy that believed the U.S. should support the spread of democracy around the world,” he said.

Mr. Barnes said President Trump had some supporters at the publication, including himself, but noted that Mr. Trump “divided conservative journalism. A number of people here believe we don’t need to love him personally but that he’s succeeding with tax reform, deregulation, and judges.”

In a tweet Friday, Mr. Kristol, who is editor at large for the magazine, said: “All good things come to an end. And so, after 23 years, does The Weekly Standard.”

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com and David Marcelis at david.marcelis@wsj.com</s>The Weekly Standard, a conservative publication known for being critical of President Donald Trump and a key intellectual force behind the disastrous U.S. war in Iraq, is set to close after 23 years.

Clarity Media Group, which owns Standard publisher MediaDC, announced Friday that the magazine’s final issue will publish on Monday, according to CNN.

“For more than twenty years The Weekly Standard has provided a valued and important perspective on political, literary and cultural issues of the day,” Ryan McKibben, chairman of MediaDC, said in a press release. “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.”

Staffers have known something “bad” was coming since at least last week, when Clarity Media revealed it was “exploring a number of possibilities” for the publication, according to Politico. The magazine’s founder, William Kristol, had already publicly floated a possible sale or merger with its expanding sister publication, the Washington Examiner.

Some say the Standard shuttered as a direct result of it resisting moving further right under the Trump administration.

The New York Times said The Weekly Standard was in danger specifically because it found itself on the wrong side of Trump, and because editor-in-chief Stephen F. Hayes had a penchant for investigative reporting and banning “alt-right-style, partisan clickbait stories.”

“And the outcome has called into question whether the conservative media world can abide journalism that questions the new orthodoxy,” the Times’ Jim Rutenberg wrote earlier this month.

The paper’s most lasting legacy may be its role in promoting the Iraq War, as its editors wrote in the months after 9/11 that they hoped “the president will courageously decide to destroy Saddam’s regime.”

“It is past time for the United States to step up and accept the real responsibilities and requirements of global leadership,” reads an editorial co-bylined by Kristol in January 2002. “We’ve already tried the alternative.”</s>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 press release. The decision was communicated to staff members at a 10:30 a.m. meeting.

All staff members were terminated, with pay through the end of the year, a Clarity spokesperson confirmed, saying that the office will be closed on Friday. Severance is being offered by Clarity and its publishing arm, MediaDC, two staff members told POLITICO, contingent on them signing a non-disclosure agreement — a stringent condition from a media company that states on its website a mission to "inform and enlighten readers."

“For more than twenty years The Weekly Standard has provided a valued and important perspective on political, literary and cultural issues of the day,” Clarity Media President and CEO Ryan McKibben said in the statement. “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.”

The decision to shutter came after more than a week of uncertainty for employees. Amid rumors of its possible demise, Clarity said 10 days ago that it was "exploring a number of possibilities" for the conservative journal, but executives have remained silent since then, including Clarity owner Philip Anschutz, the billionaire conservative donor.

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.

While the Standard has positioned itself against Trump — its founding editor William Kristol has become one of the most prominent faces of the Never Trump movement — the Examiner has featured a range of opinions on the president.

After being launched in 1995 by Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard became so influential during the administration of George W. Bush — as it cheered on the invasion of Iraq — that it became known as the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. But the journal has found itself out of sync with the conservative movement in the age of Trump.

As recently as five years ago, the magazine’s print circulation numbered more than 100,000, but by last year, that number had dropped to 72,000, according to the auditing group BPA Worldwide. Between 2016 and 2017, when Trump took office, paid circulation dropped by about 7,000 or about 10 percent, according to the auditing group.

Hayes and his allies had been seeking potential buyers for the Weekly Standard, but Clarity Media lost interest in a sale by this week, one person familiar with the situation said.

Weekly Standard staff members feared — and expected — the worst heading into Friday morning’s meeting, but they remained in the dark about what exactly would happen. Even though Clarity asked editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes to arrange an all-staff meeting for Friday, details like the time were not nailed down until a few hours before the gathering started, meaning most staff learned of the meeting first by word of mouth, the person familiar with the situation said.

In Clarity’s press release, McKibben blamed the business climate for media for the Weekly Standard’s demise, though the magazine has never been known as a big moneymaker.

“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” McKibben wrote. “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years — with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 — made it clear that a decision had to be made. After careful consideration of all possible options for its future, it became clear that this was the step we needed to take.”

In an email to staff Friday morning, Hayes expressed thanks. “This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics,” he wrote. “Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over information, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait. I’ll spare you the soapbox and the sanctimony. To put it simply: I’m proud that we’ve remained both conservative and independent, providing substantive reporting and analysis based on facts, logic and reason.”

Kristol, who two years ago moved from his editor-in-chief role to be an editor at large, has publicly said that 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.</s>The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine critical of the Trump administration, is closing after a 23-year run, its parent company announced Friday.

The publication, which helped shape conservative thought and rose to prominence during the George W. Bush administration, stood out among conservative outlets for its steadfast opposition to the Trump presidency. Co-founder William Kristol, who edited the magazine until late 2016, called himself a “Never Trumper.”

The magazine suffered from the digital disruption that has transformed the media landscape as major marketers have increasingly embraced digital giants such as Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google that can offer massive scale and greater data analytics.

“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” said Ryan McKibben, CEO of Denver-based Clarity Media Group Inc., which owns Weekly Standard publisher MediaDC. “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years—with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013—made it clear that a decision had to be made,” he said in a statement. A spokeswoman for Clarity Media said Mr. McKibben wasn’t available for further comment. Mr. Kristol didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In a tweet Friday, he said, “All good things come to an end. And so, after 23 years, does The Weekly Standard.” The magazine, first published in September 1995 by News Corp, has provided both national and international coverage, and attracted some of the country’s leading conservative journalists. It was bought by Clarity Media in 2009. News Corp is the parent of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones.</s>The Weekly Standard — the right-leaning magazine that has remained doggedly anti-Trump since the president’s election — is shutting down after 23 years.

Staffers got the news at an all-hands meeting Friday morning that they were to clean out their desks by 5 p.m. The weekly will publish its last issue Dec. 17.

Beforehand, editor-in-chief Steven Hayes had met privately with Ryan McKibben, CEO of the magazine’s parent company, Clarity Media.

“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” McKibben said in a Friday statement.

“Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years — with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 — made it clear that a decision had to be made,” he added.

The publication was launched in 1995 by News Corp., which publishes The Post, with founding editor-in-chief Bill Kristol. In 2005, it was sold to Colorado-based conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz. The publication in recent years was one of the few conservative outlets that was sharply critical of many of the policies of President Trump.

Kristol, most recently an editor-at-large, was an unabashed “Never Trump” pundit. Years earlier, Kristol had been a staunch backer of George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

“This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics,” Hayes wrote in a letter to staffers. “Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over informations, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait.”

Initially, Anschutz and MediaDC, the subsidiary of Clarity that ran the Standard, said they would allow Hayes to search for a new buyer. But CNN reported earlier this month that Hayes was told recently the company was no longer interested in selling.

Around that time, MediaDC was unveiling plans to take its weekly Washington Examiner from an inside-the-Beltway publication and transform it into a national conservative weekly. The Examiner had been generally more supportive of Trump in its editorial slant.

The closure drew immediate criticism in some conservative media circles. Writing in Commentary, columnist John Podhoretz — who also writes for The Post — said he did not believe the criticism of Trump was the main reason its owners decided to kill off the Weekly Standard.

“Rather, I believe the fissures in the conservative movement and the Republican Party that have opened up since Trump’s rise provided the company man with a convenient argument to make to the corporation’s owner, Philip Anschutz, that the company could perhaps harvest the Standard’s subscriber-base riches and then be done with it.”

Staffers are being paid to the end of the year, but their severance packages are said to be contingent on signing non-disparagement clauses.
American conservative weekly opinion magazine The Weekly Standard announces that it will shut down this month after 23 years in print.