Progressive news organization ThinkProgress is shutting down.
The news outlet, which was an editorially independent project of the liberal think tank Center For American Progress, will cease operations Friday and be folded into the think tank’s overall online efforts, according to a CAP statement Friday. The Daily Beast first reported the development.
The site’s shutdown comes after it was reported in July that CAP was putting its flagship news site up for sale and was in search of a new publisher.
Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said in the statement Friday that CAP was “left with no choice but to close ThinkProgress” after an unsuccessful two-month search involving conversations with more than 20 potential new publishers. Sources told The Daily Beast Friday that there were three potentially serious buyers in consideration recently.
“Given that we could find no new publisher, we have no other real option but to fold the ThinkProgress website back into CAP’s broader online presence with a focus on analysis of policy, politics, and news events through the lens of existing CAP and CAP Action staff experts,” Nayak said in the statement.
A CAP aide told The Daily Beast that a dozen ThinkProgress employees will lose their jobs. The CAP aide also said that laid off ThinkProgress staffers will be given a severance package that runs through the end of November and health care coverage that lasts through the year.
In a series of tweets Friday afternoon, ThinkProgress founder Judd Legum — who had left the news organization last year — reacted to the site’s shutdown. Legum tweeted that the decision to fold ThinkProgress back into CAP is a “mistake.”
1. I founded @thinkprogress and spend a decade of my career building it from scratch and I just found out it was being shut down from this Daily Beast article https://t.co/umARE6Pb3G
— 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
5. It also underscores my belief that we need more progressive media that is not only independent, but self-sustaining.
Donors are great until they jump ship.
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 6, 2019
