Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Investor Buys The D.C. Alt-Weekly That Launched Ta-Nehisi Coates And Jake Tapper

Mark Ein, a Washington DC businessman and tennis enthusiast, is entering the local newspaper scene, purchasing the Washington City Paper, an alternative publication which has come across hard times and was seeking an urgent cash infusion.

Ein is an investor and chairman of Kastle Systems building-security company. He also founded the Washington Kastles tennis team.

Speaking to Axios Ein would not disclose the dollar amount of his purchase, but said he didn’t pay “a huge amount of money” for it. The paper, according to Ein, is losing less than $1 million a year.

Washington City Paper has been the leading alternative voice in the nation’s capital and has served as the breeding ground for some of today’s top journalists. Ein intends to join forces with some of the City Paper’s alumni, including CNN’s Jake Tapper, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates and journalist Kate Boo, to guide the publication.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.