There’s been a lot of upheaval at the Washington Post in recent months, with their refusal to publish an endorsement in the presidential race and announcing that’s the position they’d be taking going forward being the tipping point for wokesters in the newsroom and on the opinion side.
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Though there were immediate resignations among some of the staff, their resident “conservative” NeverTrump columnist, Jennifer Rubin, wasn’t among them, which was a rather interesting position for her to take at the time considering what she said about similar happenings around the same time at the LA Times:
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Though she stayed firmly planted at the WaPo despite demanding journalists and editors at the LA Times immediately resign in protest over their similar announcement about endorsements, Rubin eventually began working behind the scenes for a way to quit the paper while still having a platform.
The result is a new venture called “The Contrarian,” which was first reported Monday by another media anti-Trump figure, CNN media hall monitor Brian Stelter:
Rubin is partnering with former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen and launching something new: a startup publication called The Contrarian.
The startup’s tagline, “Not owned by anybody,” is a pointed reference to billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other moguls who, in Rubin’s view, have “bent the knee” to President-elect Donald Trump.
“Our goal is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face,” Rubin told CNN in an interview ahead of the publication’s introduction.
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Not surprisingly, the writers they’ve brought on board fit the Rubin mold to a “t”:
Predictably, Stelter believes the publication has a real shot at being successful:
On Monday morning, Rubin herself tweeted out the “BIG NEWS” while also noting she was once and for all leaving Twitter/X:
BIG NEWS. I have left the Post. Corporate and billionaire media are failing to meet the moment.
[…]
And because I want to be true to my values I am leaving X. I refuse to enable the Elon-Trump presidency.
The jokes honestly wrote themselves:
Fox News media critic Joe Concha observed that, “So basically WaPo has one-tenth the daily active users it had four years ago. Resistant media appears to have failed. But hey – at least they don’t have Taylor Lorenz and Jen Rubin to offer up any more.”
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Relatedly, here’s a classic never-forget moment from Rubin:
Last but not least, I should note for the record that the ContrarianNews Twitter/X account has been suspended. That’s the handle Rubin uses for the newsletter on Instagram and BlueSky, but I’m not sure they reserved a handle for Twitter since they don’t list it on their Substack page. In any event, thought it would be amusing to point out.
Rest assured, we’ll keep you posted on how things go – or do not go – with Rubin’s latest attempt at relevancy in the aftermath of Trump’s Election Day victory. As always, stay tuned!
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