discuss washingtonindependent.com @ 27,018 USD

Look at those backlink and all from high authority sites, and highly relevant to News. Considering that someone paid 40K for some non relevant footer links of simplehitcounter,. this looks like a bargain.
For someone in the news business, this is a massive headstart.

I regularly pay 1500-2000 for sites with 500-1000 referring domains like those.
When I did a quick sort of all referring domains, the 1000th domain is AHREF's DR 60.

If I was in the news business, I would have bid against him.

The .org or .net is irrelevant. He is not paying for the name. He is paying for the Link equity.
I have also seen a lot of casino/CBD/Forex/Trading affiliates paying top dollars for this generic high authority domains. I won't be surprised if I see this domain 301'ed to a casino affiliate site lol.

Look at all these links

Washington Post
Washington Times
Washington Examiner

Forget backlinks, please.
it’s a name that could work.