Resigning New Republic Editor: ‘Don’t Believe’ Owner Chris Hughes Calling Us ‘Dinosaurs’

As resignations continue to pour in at The New Repubic Friday, one of its senior editors took to social media to give the resigning editors’ side of the story.

Julia Ioffe, senior editor at the magazine and one of dozens who resigned Friday, told people not to believe whatever spin owner Chris Hughes — the 31-year-old cofounder of Facebook — and CEO Guy Vidra come out with.

Ioffe is one of a growing list of top editors who've resigned Friday following Thursday's resignations of Leon Wiseltier--a 31-year vet at the magazine and its literary editor--and editor Franklin Foer, who was replaced by former Atlantic Wire editor Gabriel Snyder. [contextual-link post_id="36098" title="Also read" link_title="Facebook Co-Founder Buys The New Republic, Stresses Tablets" target="_blank"] Friday morning, close to 30 editors resigned in protest of owner Chris Hughes and CEO Guy Vidra's plan to morph the venerable magazine into a "vertically integrated digital media company" while also moving it from D.C. to New York City and lowering production output from 10 issues a year, down from the current 20. CEO Guy Vidra held a staff-wide meeting Friday morning that owner Chris Hughes reportedly did not attend. Ioffe tweeted details:

Chris Hughes at staff mtg: "This is a setback.These are great journalists that we lost this morning. But we are incredibly well positioned." - Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 5, 2014

 

Chris Hughes at the meeting: "This institution has been around for 100 fucking years." no fucking kidding - Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 5, 2014

 

Chris Hughes telling the staff that he is different from other FB founders bc he cares about institutions, that he's always sent that signal - Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 5, 2014