Maybe Ezra Klein and Jeff Bezos Are Both Right

The rumors were true: Ezra Klein, the creator of the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, is leaving the paper to start a new venture with a couple of his colleagues. In my bit of the Twitterverse, the general reaction appears to be that Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, made a huge mistake in letting Klein go. “Insane failure to keep an asset,” Thomas Edsall, the former Post writer, tweeted. “Ezra Klein leaves the Washington Post. Last shred of Post relevance leaves, too,” added Bruce Bartlett, the former Reagan Administration official.

Such reactions are understandable. Klein is a widely admired and highly productive blogger, columnist, and television talking head. (In one of his many incarnations, he has penned several smart essays for The New Yorker.) He also has a shrewd understanding of how online media works. In Wonkblog, he created a comprehensive, timely, and informative blog that serves as an invaluable resource to many people interested in Washington policy issues, myself included.

Any media organization would surely have wanted to keep hold of such a gifted and hard-working staffer, especially one who was threatening to take with him at least two other talented and energetic individuals: Melissa Bell, the Post’s “director of platforms,” and Dylan Matthews, a young Wonkblog writer who recently launched a sister site, Know More. At the Post, the pressure to retain online talent is especially strong because of the Politico precedent. About eight years ago, two Post reporters, John Harris and Jim VandeHei, proposed a new media venture to the paper’s brass, got turned down, and left to launch Politico. (A Slate headline on Tuesday read, in part, “Washington Wonders Whether the Post Ever Learns Anything.”)

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