The Washington Post Company, which famously accepted Dave Weigel’s resignation from its namesake newspaper last month, has hired him back in essentially the same job for its online magazine Slate.
Journalist David Weigel, who resigned from the Washington Post last month following a leaked email controversy, is joining Slate as a political reporter.
“I’m thrilled to be joining Slate, thrilled to be working with writers I’ve read and respected since logging on to read it meant enduring a symphony of dial-up clicks and hisses,” Weigel told The Upshot.
“This is the magazine that invented the sort of journalism I want to do,” he continued. “And I’m very pleased that I’ll get to continue working the beat I developed at the Post, the Independent, and Reason.”
Slate editor David Plotz told The Upshot that Weigel will launch a blog covering politics, but not exclusively on the conservative movement, his area of expertise. Weigel’s also expected to write long-form pieces.
“We’re delighted to have him,” Plotz said. “He’s a ball of energy and fearlessness and curiosity.”
Matt Yglesias tweets that this shows the “Washington Post company is managed by idiots.” But it may just be that they think a different journalistic style fits a snarky, contra-conventional-wisdom opinion mag than a newspaper. Although you’d think that they’d have made this move at the time rather than going through this weird two-step.
