Jonah Goldberg is leaving National Review to start his own media company with former editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard Steve Hayes.  This sounds like great news.  The more publications out there that talk about and debate conservative ideas, the better.

But Goldberg's intent is to publish a journal that will feature "old-fashioned reporting" and eschew "partisan boosterism."  He says he is looking for investors.

Good luck with that.

Axios:

Details: Goldberg and Hayes tell me they plan a reporting-driven, Trump-skeptical company that will begin with newsletters as soon as this summer, then add a website in September, and perhaps ultimately a print magazine.

• Hayes, the likely CEO, and Goldberg, likely the editor-in-chief, are the founders.
• Hayes tells me about the startup, which doesn't have a name now: "We believe there's a great appetite on the center-right for an independent conservative media company that resists partisan boosterism and combines a focus on old-school reporting with interesting and provocative commentary and analysis."

Hayes and Goldberg are seeking investors.

Did Goldberg fall asleep for a decade?  Those who identify as conservatives today absolutely love partisan boosterism and couldn't give a fig about "old-school reporting."  "Independent conservatism" is dead.  It's Trump's world now, and the rest of us on the right are just living in it.

Is he really going to tell potential investors this?  My guess is that Goldberg and Hayes are looking for one investor — a deep-pockets angel who will finance their anti-Trump indulgences while losing a couple of million a year.

I don't want to say it will be a vanity sheet.  Goldberg and Hayes are exceptional writers who are part of a dwindling faction on the right who haven't made peace with the president.  If you believe in free and open debate on the right, regardless of their opinion of Trump, then any publication that promotes ideas that are remotely conservative should be embraced.

But it won't be a successful money-making operation.  Niche publications — and this is a niche getting smaller all the time — cannot long survive online.  We should wish Goldberg and Hayes well but recognize and acknowledge that failure is almost guaranteed.