National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg and former The Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Steve Hayes are joining together to launch a new conservative media company, Axios reported on Thursday morning.
Goldberg and Hayes are currently seeking investors for the company,which will start a newsletter this summer and debut its website in September. The still-unnamed venture will be “Trump-skeptical,” according to Axios, and emphasize reporting-driven content.
“We believe there’s a great appetite on the center-right for an independent conservative media company that resists partisan boosterism and combines a focus on old-school reporting with interesting and provocative commentary and analysis,” Hayes told Axios.
The new company comes only months after The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine founded by Bill Kristol in 1995, shut down in December.
Shadows had loomed over the Standard, which defied other conservative media outlets by taking a consistently anti-Trump stance since the 2016 election, with questions about the Standard’s financial health as well as plans for Clarity, its parent company, to expand its more pro-Trump outlet The Washington Examiner to include a weekly magazine of its own.
Goldberg himself has been one of the most vocal anti-Trump conservative voices in the media since 2016. “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert even issued a public apology to Goldberg last August after mistakenly calling Goldberg a “Trump ally.” Goldberg is expected to continue as a fellow at the National Review Institute after founding the new company.