Sounds like there’s still bad blood from those days working tirelessly at Robert Allbritton‘s failed local news outlet TBD, aptly named for a pub that was forever waiting any sense of direction.
Stephen Buttry had the kind of hilarious title of director of community engagement at TBD and worked under Fred Ryan. (This was a publication that once wrote about how asparagus makes your urine smell.) Ryan, who was previously President and CEO of Politico, was just named publisher of The Washington Post.
In characteristic Politico fashion, they’re now crapping all over him.
Unless you’re NYT‘s Jonathan Martin, they rarely behave nicely when someone leaves. In a story by Washingtonian media writer Harry Jaffe this week, Buttry, now a visiting scholar at Louisiana State University, is the only brave soul who went on record with it. All the others, Politico employees, hid behind a cloak of anonymity. Good thing, too, just in case they someday want to jump ship and head over to WaPo.
“Veterans of Politico, as well as Allbritton’s failed attempt at a local news web outlet, TBD, found Weymouth’s departure unsurprising, but they were shocked to hear of Ryan’s appointment.
‘I think Fred’s old school, and the Post needs someone innovative.’ … “I never got the sense that any innovative ideas came from Fred.”
Buttry’s view is widely shared among Politico journalists, one of whom called the news that Ryan would take over the Post ‘jaw dropping.'”
As some may recall, Ryan helped invent Politico. So he’s got that going for him.