DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE NEW YORKER
Voices
Wonkblog at washingtonpost.com,
is reportedly leaving for a new venture, as yet undefined. According
to Ravi Somaiya in The New York
Times, Klein sought an eight-figure
Post investment in the new project.
Klein already has his own Wonkblog staff, but clearly he has something much bigger in mind — perhaps an all-purpose independent
news organization along the lines
of Talking Points Memo. (Although
it wouldn’t be called Wonkblog —
the Post owns the name and will
be keeping it, writes The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone, who
broke the news about Klein’s proposal last month.)
We can’t know everything that
went into the decision. Maybe it
came down to money. But Wonkblog generates a hefty amount of
web traffic — more than 4 million
pageviews a month, according to
a profile of Klein in The New Republic last February. “It’s ‘fuck
you traffic,’” a Post source told
TNR’s Julia Ioffe. “He’s always had
enough traffic to end any argument
with the senior editors.” Apparently, that’s no longer the case.
Significantly, The Times reports
that new Post owner Jeff Bezos
was involved in the decision to
let Klein leave. Last September,
DAN
KENNEDY
HUFFINGTON
01.19.14
It would have been
enormously beneficial to
the Post if Politico had been
launched under its own
umbrella. And Politico itself
might be better.”
shortly after announcing his intention to buy The Post for $250
million, the Amazon.com founder
lauded the “daily ritual” of reading
the morning paper — which led to
some chiding by one of The Post’s
own journalists, Timothy B. Lee.
Despite Bezos’ well-earned
reputation as a clear-eyed digital visionary, he appears to have
some romantic notions about the
business he’s bought into. And allowing entrepreneurs such as the
twentysomething Klein run his
own shop inside The Post might
not fit with that vision.
What makes the likely Klein de-
Ezra Klein’s
eight-figure
proposal
for a new
Washington
Post venture
was turned
down.