American online conservative magazine
The Dispatch is an American conservative subscription-based and advertisement-free online magazine founded by Jonah Goldberg, Stephen F. Hayes, and Toby Stock. Several of "The Dispatch"'s staff (including Hayes) are alumni of "The Weekly Standard", which is now defunct, and "National Review".
History.
After "The Weekly Standard" ceased publication in December 2018, Hayes, Goldberg, and Stock were inspired to start a media company with the goal of "producing serious, factually grounded journalism for a conservative audience". Goldberg and Hayes expressed concern over the alliance between conservative media outlets and the Republican Party, and started "The Dispatch" with a desire to instead focus on conservative principles, regardless of party lines. The company is based in downtown Washington, D.C. By June 2020, "The Dispatch" had grown to twelve staffers.
"The Dispatch" began with a beta launch in October 2019 and fully launched on January 7, 2020. Hayes, Goldberg, and Stock own a majority of the company, but there are additional individual investors. The founders intentionally avoided using venture capitalists. At its launch in October 2019, "The Dispatch" had pooled $6 million in investment capital and had in its employ a full-time staff of eight individuals, including founding editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, managing editor Rachael Larimore, and (soon after its launch) senior editor David A. French. In January 2020, shortly after launching, "The Dispatch Podcast" appeared briefly on Apple's Top 100 news podcasts. By March 2020, the company claimed to have nearly 10,000 paying subscribers.
The Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) certified "The Dispatch"'s fact-checking division in May 2020. As of October 2024, "The Dispatch" had more than 500,000 subscribers, with more than 40,000 of them paying for the full service. The company pulled in nearly $2 million in revenue during its first year, most of which was from Substack subscriptions. "The Dispatch" was Substack's first media company. In October 2022, the publication moved from Substack to its own website.
"The Dispatch" has been sharply critical of Donald Trump from a center-right perspective. On 6 January 2021, after the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Rudy Giuliani left a voicemail message intended for Senator Tommy Tuberville on a different Senator's voicemail account. This message urged Tuberville to delay certification of the electoral vote: "Just try to slow it down." The unnamed Senator gave the message to "The Dispatch", which immediately broke the story. The next day, "The Dispatch" published an editorial calling for the impeachment and removal of President Trump.
Content.
"The Dispatch" provides free web content, podcasts, and a mix of paid and free newsletters. "The Dispatch" also produces a fact-checking column.
References.
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