ThinkProgress – Tom's Blog

ThinkProgress, the stalwart liberal opinion site, may not survive the Trump era. After operating at a loss for years, the website is now up for sale.

The Center for American Progress (CAP), the think-tank set up by the Podesta brothers that owns TP, told the Daily Beast on Monday that the project was in search of a new publisher due to dire financial difficulties – $3 million worth of them, to be precise. CAP added that it would ensure the new owners maintained the same editorial line.

The website, which pushed virtually every outlandish conspiracy theory related to President Donald Trump and his alleged ties Moscow, has had its share of gaffes over the years, perhaps explaining the exodus of readers and financial backers.

Last September, ThinkProgress columnist and editor Ian Millhiser caught flak when he urged liberal activists to “confront Republicans where they eat, where they sleep and where they work,” which sounded to some like a call to commit crimes against lawmakers.

“Breaking into someone’s home while they are sleeping to confront them on their political beliefs is especially unhinged and illegal,” journalist Tim Pool pointed out on Twitter in response to the remark.

For an outlet that regularly concerns itself with “atmospheres” that are conducive to violence, Milhiser was all too willing to help create the same noxious cloud around his own political adversaries.

ThinkProgress editor under fire after calling for Republicans to be confronted ‘where they sleep’

ThinkProgress has not only alienated Republicans, who were never likely to read the site in the first place, but has also drawn the ire of its more deeply progressive readership. A critical article published in April entitled “Bernie Sanders is a millionaire” prompted an angry response from the Vermont senator himself, who published an open letter in the New York Times slamming ThinkProgress and CAP for smearing him and other Democratic candidates. The divisive approach, Sanders argued, would hand another presidential term to Trump.

Liberal journalist Aaron Mate pointed out some additional reasons left-leaning readers might have decided to ditch the publication.

The progressive fake news outlet looks to be on its last legs.

By Shane Trejo

ThinkProgress, an astroturfed entity largely funded through a top Democrat Party think-tank, is struggling to maintain profitability and retain its employees as the market share for their fake news is drying up.

The Daily Beast obtained financial records showing that the progressive propaganda site is expecting to post a $3 million gap between revenue and expenses in 2019. They noted that the website has never exactly been a moneymaker, but it is now more unprofitable than ever before.

The John Podesta-founded Center for American Progress, which has funded ThinkProgress as its propaganda organ despite the fact it has never been much of a revenue generator throughout the years, may have to re-think their investment as it hemorrhages money.

“Unfortunately, ThinkProgress has had a large and growing budget gap for going on two years now,” said Navin Nayak, who works as the executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

“Like most media organizations, ThinkProgress has relied on advertising revenue as a major source of funding, increasingly subject to the behavior of social-media platforms and their decisions on news distribution. As with many other digital media organizations, 2017 and 2018 were particularly challenging years in this regard, as ThinkProgress experienced a 40 percent drop in ad revenue over just one year, creating an inevitable budgetary strain,” Nayak added.

Advertising revenue is expected to fall $350,000 short of initial estimates for the year while online contributions are expected to undershoot predictions by approximately $180,000. They are expecting a mere $64,000 in grant revenue, which is $60,000 under original estimates and a shocking $540,000 short of their 2018 figures.

Staffers, such as managing editor Tara Culp-Ressler and four of her colleagues, have already left the organization as the writing is on the wall that ThinkProgress is a sinking ship.

The rest of the writers are not happy, as evidenced by a letter addressed to editor-in-chief Jodi Enda by the ThinkProgress writers’ union last month.

“[M]orale is low across the team as we wrestle with lost trust and an unclear vision,” the letter read. “After careful consideration over how best to address our shared concerns, we write to you today with the hope that we can reignite the passion that brought us all here and work together to build a promising new future for ThinkProgress.”

But as downsizing and other cost-cutting measures become inevitable due to ThinkProgress becoming so insignificant and unlucrative, morale is never likely to improve.

“As these challenges emerged, CAP Action Fund has been transparent with ThinkProgress staff, including implementing and explaining the need for a hiring freeze early in 2018 and providing managers and the union a full account of the financial pressures facing ThinkProgress in the fall of 2018,” Nayak said.

“Indeed, in fall of 2018, we shared with the ThinkProgress union that the situation was so concerning that actions of some kind would be needed. The budget situation has only grown worse since,” he added.

It looks to only be a better of time before ThinkProgress shuts its doors, as digital media outlets known for publishing liberal propaganda struggle to remain afloat in a competitive online marketplace.