The Weekly Standard was just shut down:

The Weekly Standard, the conservative political and cultural magazine, will shut down after its last issue appears on Monday, the chief executive of its parent company said Friday.

The Washington-based magazine’s 35-member editorial staff will be laid off as a result, said Ryan McKibben, the head of Clarity Media Group, the Colorado company that owns the Standard and its sister publication, the Washington Examiner newspaper.

“This was a business decision,” McKibben said. “As we looked at all of our options, we saw we were facing a steady decline in revenues and circulation. That drove us to our decision to close this week. . . . It was a tough decision.”

Staffers who were told of the closure by McKibben at a morning meeting on Friday were skeptical of the business rationale, saying Clarity has invested heavily in the Washington Examiner, with far greater losses than those produced by the Weekly Standard.

Several noted the timing of the closure announcement, calling it “the Christmas massacre.”

The Standard was founded in 1995 by three journalists — Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes and John Podhoretz — with funding from conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch sold his interest to billionaire Philip Anschutz in 2009.

Anyone who calls Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, or John Podhoretz “Journalists” has a twisted view of the Fourth Estate.

Employees have been told they will receive severance pay in exchange for signing a nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreement.

How utterly proper.

Don’t worry about their employees though, I’m sure that wingnut welfare will take care of them.