Liberal news site ThinkProgress shutting down

Liberal news website ThinkProgress is shutting down after its parent organization said it was unable to find a new publisher for the site.

The site was a project of The Center for American Progress (CAP) think tank, which announced news of its closure on Friday.

“We are very sad to announce that after more than two months of searching, we have been unable to identify a new publisher for ThinkProgress, and we are left with no choice but to close ThinkProgress as an independent enterprise focused on original reporting,” Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said in a statement.{mosads}

ThinkProgress will stop operating Friday, according to the Daily Beast, which first reported the closure. It was launched in 2005 during the George W. Bush administration.

The liberal news site is expected to be folded into CAP’s online presence and focus on analysis from CAP scholars and CAP Action staff. 

ClimateProgress, which merged with ThinkProgress almost a decade ago, will be taken over by its founder Joe Romm. 

Nayak said that CAP could not “continue supplementing the growing shortfall in ThinkProgress revenue.”

He added that despite conversations with more than 20 potential publishers for ThinkProgress, CAP ultimately was unable to find a publisher for the site.

A CAP aide told The Daily Beast that a dozen ThinkProgress employees will lose their jobs. Laid off employees will reportedly receive severance through the end of November and health care coverage through the end of the year.

“ThinkProgress and the hundreds of journalists who have worked there over the past decade, many having become leaders in their field, leave behind a deep and unique legacy of helping the country move toward truth, justice, and progress,” Nayak said. 

Former staffers expressed sadness and anger over the closure on social media.

“It’s disheartening that CAP no longer believes that independent progressive journalism is worth supporting,” wrote ThinkProgress founder Judd Legum, who left the site last year, in a Twitter thread.

“ThinkProgress started before the HuffingtonPost, before the DailyBeast, before Twitter, before Facebook,” he added. “And it had a big impact.”

2. I joined CAP in 2003 and was one of the first employees and I joined because I believed in the mission of creating permanent progressive infrastructure

It’s disheartening that CAP no longer believes that independent progressive journalism is worth supporting

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 6, 2019

3. (Quick note to trolls: Sorry, but I didn’t lose my job. I left ThinkProgress over a year ago.)

ThinkProgress started before the HuffingtonPost, before the DailyBeast, before Twitter, before Facebook

And it had a big impact

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 6, 2019

4. The decision to fold ThinkProgress back into CAP, in my view, is a mistake. It violates the spirit in which it has operated over the last 15 years.

It also underscores that this was ultimately about control, not money.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 6, 2019

HuffPost Washington bureau chief Amanda Terkel tweeted that the closure was “so stupid all around.”

She added that progressive media outlets need support, including “linking to them, sharing their stories, giving them scoops and like… helping them thrive for real.”

The fact that TP is dying is so stupid all around.

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) September 6, 2019

That means supporting them financially, linking to them, sharing their stories, giving them scoops and like… helping them thrive for real.

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) September 6, 2019

“The death of @thinkprogress makes me so, so sad on a personal level. @fshakir gave me my first full-time job as a critic, and the resources I needed to be in the room at places like @OfficialTCA,” wrote Washington Post opinion writer Alyssa Rosenberg, referring to Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir and the Television Critics Association.

The death of @thinkprogress makes me so, so sad on a personal level. @fshakir gave me my first full-time job as a critic, and the resources I needed to be in the room at places like @OfficialTCA. I wouldn’t be at @PostOpinions without him and @JuddLegum. https://t.co/1J5sJuviRm

— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) September 6, 2019

This story was updated at 2:52 p.m.