In the Obama era, ThinkProgress was the brains behind the machine. Then the machine got stiff and creaky. CAP never survived allegations of Clinton partisanship. It’s gone from a trending lefty group to an outmoded beast still clinging to failed efforts like ThinkProgress.
Well the clinging is over.
ThinkProgress, once one of the more visible online banners of lefty agitprop, is up for sale. This is like Lenin’s mummy being auctioned off.
ThinkProgress, the flagship news site of the Democratic think tank Center for American Progress, is up for sale.
Staff were informed on Monday afternoon that the site would be sold off and a CAP official told The Daily Beast that the organization would begin looking for prospective buyers for the website, which has come under severe financial strains during the Trump era.
“Unfortunately, like so many other news outlets that have relied on advertising to fund its work, ThinkProgress has seen a significant drop in revenue in recent years, along with other financial strains. In addition, events over the last few years have underscored the divergent missions of American Progress and ThinkProgress,” said Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
According to internal documents previously reviewed by The Daily Beast, the site was facing a $3 million gulf between revenues and expenses in 2019, with $350,000 of it made up by a shortfall in ad revenue and nearly $180,000 of it coming from a drop in expected online contributions.
The obvious question is who would want to buy a failing digital media site?
Lefty digital media is crashing and consolidating on all sides. When HuffPo, Vice and what’s left of the Gawker slime empire are in big trouble, where’s the demand for a retro product like ThinkProgress, which is just bleeding money with no end in sight?
Paging, George Soros.
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