Q: One of the issues surrounding how this has played out is the fact that your vision for the future of The New Republic is still something of a mystery, which former editor Michael Kinsley pointed out in a story in the New York Times. What’s this thing going to look like in a year?  A: I think that people read and share and talk about the news in a different way in 2014 than even a couple years ago. That sounds like a platitude, but the fact is that we have to adapt to catch up and experiment with those new storytelling techniques. We've begun that but we need to accelerate that. I think traditional newsrooms are doing that. The New York Times is doing that. There are startups that are doing that — like Vox and Mic and others — and that kind of culture is what we have to embrace  Q: Take me through the last three months at TNR. When did you know you had to make changes? And why were those changes necessary?  A: In late spring I made the decision to bring on a CEO who had both digital media experience and who had worked inside of traditional media companies. Guy [Vidra] was the perfect fit. He had worked at startups and Yahoo, but had also been at the Washington Post and a couple other places ... He started in early October, and over the past couple months, he's begun to lay the foundation for an increasing emphasis on this kind of storytelling that we want to do. We, unfortunately, last week, were scooped. There's no two ways about it. And a conversation that I had wanted to have privately with our editor Frank [Foer] had to happen over the phone, and I regret how much of that was handled. But the reality is that we've been on this trajectory to increasingly emphasize the digital nature of the work that we do, and that will continue.  Q: It seems to me that much of the worry that people have is around how digital monetization will impact the quality of TNR — primarily that it takes a combination of traffic-friendly content and sheer volume to make it work. Is this where you see the company headed? If not, what’s the model you’re looking at?  I don't really buy in to the strategy that more volume equals more eyeballs. I think that you have to post often and frequently to be part of the conversation of the day, but it's not about producing more. It's not that simple. Ultimately what people read is what is most interesting and most impactful. We need to tell big stories in several different ways.  Q: But you can't ignore scale, right? At some point, you have to increase the number of articles to achieve financial solvency.  "That assumes that, as an organization, we're chasing traffic for the sake of traffic. There are digital media and entertainment companies out there whose No. 1 goal is enormous reach. They want and expect tens of millions, maybe 100 million-plus people to visit their properties on any given month. We are not that. Our success is, first off, measured by the impact of the journalism and the stories that we're producing. Secondly, by the reach. I do want as many people as possible to read it, but that's certainly not [going to come at the expense of] disregarding the quality of the journalism itself. And ultimately, our success is reliant on financial sustainability.  Q: When you first bought TNR, it seemed like you wanted to act as more of a steward rather than a disruptor. Since then, you’ve reportedly had trouble keeping premium advertisers, growing circulation or attracting much of a digital audience. If you could do it all over again, what would you change? Would you pursue this digital shift earlier?  I think of myself as a steward and as an investor in this place. Because of that, we need to make these changes that reduces the print frequency and invests further in digital now. Across the board, our journalism has been very strong. We have more people reading it. I think we had more than 5 million unique readers just last month alone. Digital advertising revenue is nearly half of our total advertising revenue base. We've built a solid foundation for where we're headed, and what it means to be a good steward of a place like this is understanding that the world is changing and we can't remain a small print magazine for Washington if we want to hope to have the influence that we've had historically and 10 years from now.  Q: There seemed to be pushback, particularly against Guy Vidra and his notion that TNR needs to “break shit.” Some former staffers have said this situation was not at all about resistance to going digital, but more about how the transition has been handled, particularly with Vidra. What is your response to that? Is there a culture gap at TNR? If so, is that something you’re working to bridge?  The conventional wisdom here is that this has been about Silicon Valley versus the tradition. That's unfair in a lot of ways, most prominently to a lot of the great and talented journalists who left last week. In general they were very open-minded and anxious to adapt to the changing media environment. Everybody knows that this landscape is shifting. The folks here have seen that and wanted to evolve. Bringing Guy in as CEO is an important moment for us to mature as a company and to think very deeply about where we're going five or 10 years from now. I do think, culturally, something that he and I both want to do is create a place where experimentation and innovation around digital storytelling is commonplace. That does not come at the expense of the quality journalism that we've done or the values or the voice of the institution. If I could have done a better job making it clear that it wasn't an either/or, I would have, but I certainly don't think it is.  Q: Since you unexpectedly lost of chunk of your staff, have your rebuilding efforts been set back or changed your plans for rebuilding?  These are colleagues, and many of them have been friends for a long time. I was sad to see them go. We will begin — we're already beginning — conversations and hiring. We will grow, and we will come back strong. We had 14 members of our staff leave. We still have 3/4 of the staff who are here, who are determined to see this through, and I think they feel a sense of responsibility to the situation to make sure it survives and flourishes.  Q: You said that if you care about a publication you don’t walk out. Do you see those staffers as having caused damage to TNR? Would you expect them to have abided by changes with which they fundamentally disagreed?  The evolution of The New Republic over the last two-and-a-half years has been an increasing emphasis on doing digital just as well as we do the longform storytelling that we do in print. The decision of those folks to leave last week, I mean obviously I think it was a mistake because I don't think that these things are in competition with one another. But actions speak louder than words. Over the next coming weeks and months and years, we have to show to ourselves — and to the world — that we can do good, impactful journalism and do it in a way that as many people are able to read it as possible. I would have preferred these colleagues and friends not to have left, but we have an opportunity to build a strong team now [...] I regret that they made the decision they did, but The New Republic is bigger than any one person and any one of us.
After mass resignations, New Republic owner Chris Hughes talks to Mashable about what went wrong and where the magazine is headed (besides to New York).