The New Republic was sold for reason: its business model is failing. While Hughes might be making a mess of this transition (perhaps no surprise for a 30 year old who lucked into getting rich), some kind of hard transition was going to happen in any case. It's not like all these folks were going to have long happy careers at a niche long-form print magazine, if only Chris Hughes had never come along.
It's not that the staff were upset that there were going to be some business model changes (or even cuts in headcount). It's that the new leadership seems to have come in pretty cock-heaeded, and basically clueless as to how to deal with the existing culture there -- or just how to treat the staff as human beings, generally. Accomplished, senior-level people don't just resign en masse, and say things like this:
“Leon said he’s never seen any editor be so disrespected and dicked around--I’m paraphrasing--as Frank has been treated for the last couple of months,” said senior editor Julia Ioffe, describing the meeting Thursday afternoon in the newsroom, at which Wieseltier and Foer announced that they’d quit.
or this:
“It was cowardly, the way Chris and Guy went about this,” Ioffe said. “Media reporters have been calling for months, asking, ‘Is Frank fired?,’ and they’ve been lying to everybody, including Frank.”
or this:
At least the king in the Red Wedding had the balls to stab everyone in person. — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) December 5, 2014
for no reason.
Gabriel is ideally suited to bridge traditional journalism and digital media... He truly reflects the “straddle generation” of journalists and editors who remain deeply rooted in the qualities of traditional journalism – having worked with brands such as the New York Observer and The Atlantic – but also understands what it takes to create content that will travel across all platforms.
"Straddle generation"? Seriously? The phrase practically drips with condescension, both for Snyder and the man he's replacing. "I'm completely digital, of course; but unlike Frank, Gabriel at least has one foot in reality."
Try replacing the context but keep the structure:
"He truly reflects the “straddle generation” of devops who remain deeply rooted in the qualities of traditional system administration – having worked with brands such as AT&T and IBM – but also understands what it takes to create applications that can scale across all platforms."
Does that somehow imply that traditional system administration is a bad thing? I don't think so.
(Edited because I'm an idiot)
Certainly none doing the stabbing in person as described; there's certainly instances in GoT of people claiming the title King killing people personally in GoT, but the Red Wedding is equally certainly not one of them. A key aspect of the Red Wedding was that the Lord directly overseeing the killing (who also wasn't doing it personally) was (perceived up to that point to be) an ally of the targets who were his guests, and (again, perceived) opponent of the King (Joffery) whose cause was served by the killing.
Good sir I am a man of great reputation and standing in my community. For you to have stabbed me with a common kitchen knife -- rather than a bejeweled, ivory handled stabbing dagger as I deserve is a great insult to me and my name. A pox upon thee and I shall die forthwith to spite you.
If you want a click-driven website with some stories, just start one instead.