Usually I reserve this headline for news about some radical jihadist blowing himself while assembling his sweater vest, but the media will do as a substitute.
I haven’t kept up with the news that Vox has been cutting staff because of losses (and unionization). But this is the story today from The Daily Beast that offers the most schadenfreudey goodness:
Top Progressive ThinkProgress Site Bleeding Cash and People
ThinkProgress, the website that is a project of the Democratic Party’s primary think tank, is facing dire financial troubles and bleeding staff, according to primary-source documents viewed by The Daily Beast.
A budget document provided to ThinkProgress management and obtained by The Daily Beast showed that the website was expecting a roughly $3 million gulf between revenue and expenses for 2019. ThinkProgress has never been a revenue generator, and has often made up for its deficits through fundraising efforts and funds from its mothership entity, the Center for American Progress (CAP). But the current outlook is significantly worse than ever before. . .
In the face of these falling revenue streams, ThinkProgress has seen payroll drop by 12 percent from its peak level in 2019 and “salary growth” by 5 percent, according to the document. . .
The numbers paint a grim picture for one of the better-known, unapologetically progressive media platforms. And it has been exacerbated by what a source described as a failure of leadership at CAP to provide answers about “the short- and long-term future of the site.”
The site seemed poised for a boom during the Trump years, when content for a liberal-minded outlet appeared bountiful. Instead, the road has been rocky. . .
I dunno, maybe part of the problem is that fewer people are reading what they’re offering? I’m sure President Sanders or President Warren will come through with subsidies.
P.S. This tidbit in the story is curious:
When a number of fairly large donations came into CAP following the 2016 election, ThinkProgress staffed up, ballooning its ranks to 40 people at one point, a source familiar with internal operations said. But those were one-time donations and as traffic declined—in part, several sources say, because of changes to Facebook’s algorithm—and revenue fell, there was not enough money to sustain the higher payroll.
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