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    ninjaginJ.K. Trotter
    1/05/15 2:50pm

    I always thought TNR was an ever-fading rag, but at least one that seemed to be always evolving into one thing from another. From what I've been been able to gather about Hughes, he wanted TNR to be catchy and edgy like Vice and made a set of pretty heavy-handed changes that irritated scads of the old hands. The folks that left would not have been happy there, anyway, given the new direction. The new folks that come in will have less resistance to trying something new. All that said, it seems like he walked in and wanted to make these very substantive changes as one might change the drapes around the living room window. It seemed be very casually thought-out and he's made a lot of enemies. In ten years, I think he'll wish that he'd handled it differently. He doesn't really have any special skills in journalism that I've been able to see, and maybe like the kid who took up the Rolling Stone online site he just needs some time, but I think he believes that his deep pockets make him right about everything he does. Maybe he'll be lucky, but I don't think so.

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      Michaelninjagin
      1/05/15 3:07pm

      From what I've been been able to gather about Hughes, he wanted TNR to be catchy and edgy like Vice

      I've always believed that the real reason he bought TNR was to have his own current events/politics publication as a platform to help his husband get elected to congress. And it didn't work.

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      ninjaginMichael
      1/05/15 3:26pm

      That makes a little bit of sense to me, on the face of it, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to get themselves or a spouse into congress. Besides, aren't there plenty of soft-money ways to push along a political career? My bet is still that he wanted to be a big mover and shaker in media, like a young Ariana Huffington, and he filled his head with marketing buzzwords and bought TNR. And it didn't work.

      Hmmm. We seem to have found different paths to the same endpoint. Perhaps we are both correct?

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    LordBurleighJ.K. Trotter
    1/05/15 2:28pm

    Today's Gossip Is Tomorrow's New Republic.

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      IagreewithGawkerJ.K. Trotter
      1/05/15 2:39pm

      It's a little weird you describe Synder as a "Gawker alum" but Spiers as a "former New York Observer editor" and forget the Gawker founder part.

      It's also fun to describe someone's personal blog as a "new report." But I appreciate the Rumpelstiltskin-ian task of making reading your friend's blog look like "work" and then posting related googling to the internet for more people to read while pretend to be working, in true human centipede fashion.

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        Elizabeth SpiersIagreewithGawker
        1/05/15 3:13pm

        FWIW, I know very few people working at Gawker right now and have never met Trotter at all. I'm sure he's wonderful and charming, but we're not friends. (I mean, I left in 2003. Trotter was probably in elementary school.)

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        IagreewithGawkerElizabeth Spiers
        1/05/15 4:27pm

        I'm not sure that makes a difference... also FWIW I think he missed that point of your piece, which is that someone is often going to yell at you for doing your job if you're a journalist doing your job, and get used to it. Instead we get things like it is "comically petty that Hughes decided to whine to his rich buddy" ... doesn't this happen all the time? Which makes this not news at all, and barely anything (emphasis mine). I guess since you weren't indignant and outraged (even though you were the person this happened to) Trotter had to be because the New Republic! and how dare rich person! Whatever.

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      econdaveJ.K. Trotter
      1/05/15 2:57pm

      This says a lot more about Jared Kushner than it does about Chris Hughes.

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        PopChipsJ.K. Trotter
        1/05/15 2:50pm

        I once saw him (several years ago) at a business function and asked him where the restroom was located.

        Attending events in Silicon Valley can be so confusing at times because a very young person can look much like the event staff, but instead be a multi-millionaire.

        Thankfully, he was gracious and pointed me in the right direction.

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