Stepping Away

After 15 years as Founding Editor, stepping away from a media site follows editorial errors in a newsletter that surfaced in April. Responsibility for the mistakes is accepted as personal, with no excuse offered and a commitment to earn back reputation. The suspension created a period of clarity, breaking a long routine of constant political media work and the pressure of the news cycle. Time away provided space to question whether relentless effort produced real value. Rest became possible, including reading novels for reflection rather than research. The experience was difficult professionally and not framed as wellness, but it offered perspective and a reset.

"After 15 years as Founding Editor of Mediaite, I'm stepping away from the site I helped launch, and that has been my obsession for well over a decade. The decision follows the editorial errors in the One Sheet newsletter that surfaced in April. I addressed those mistakes on the record at the time, and I stand by what I said then. These were honest mistakes. There was no excuse for them; the responsibility was mine, and the only credible response was to own it."

"Does intention matter in this sort of situation? I suspect some will show me grace, and many won't. I get that. Journalism requires discipline, and in this case, I fell short. I've spent 15 years building a reputation I'm proud of, and that's something I have to earn back, not something I can ask for. That work begins today."

"What I didn't expect, when the suspension started in April, was that the past month would turn out to be one of the most clarifying experiences of my professional life. Like a lot of people who work in political media, I've spent the better part of two decades on what has come to feel like a treadmill, running hard all the time without ever quite getting in better shape. The news cycle never slows down. The takes pile up, the analysis compounds, and you start to mistake velocity for value."

"Stepping off that treadmill, even involuntarily, was the first time in years I'd had real space to ask whether all the running was actually getting me anywhere. It also gave my brain a chance to do something it hadn't done in a long while: rest. I read two novels in the past month, the kind that ask you to sit with a sentence before moving on. I can't remember the last time I read a novel that wasn't research for a column, and honestly, I think the answer is sometime before Twitter, which probably tells you everything you need to know."

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