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New Victims in the 'Billionaire War on Journalism' (newsweek.com)
Newsweek offers a new reminder that internet journalism can vanish in a corporate shutdown or be "sued out of existence" -- so it certainly isn't permanent.
Writers at the local New York City news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist -- as well as Gothamist's network of city-specific sister sites, such as LAist and DCist -- learned this chilling lesson on Thursday, when billionaire Joe Ricketts abruptly shut down the publications and fired their employees. The decision has been widely regarded as a form of retaliation in response to the newsroom's vote last week to unionize with the Writers Guild of America, East. Worse, for a full 20 hours after the news broke, Gothamist.com and DNAinfo.com effectively didn't exist: Any link to the sites showed only Ricketts's statement about his decision, which claims the business was not profitable enough to support the journalism...
The larger tragedy is a nationwide death of local news. Alt-weeklies are flailing as ad revenue dries up. The Village Voice, a legendary New York paper, published its final print issue in September. Houston Press just laid off its staff and ended its print edition this week. Countless stories won't be covered, because the journalistic institutions to tell them no longer exist. Who benefits from DNAinfo being shuttered? Billionaires. Shady landlords. Anyone DNAinfo reported critically on over the years. Who loses? Anyone who lives in the neighborhoods DNAinfo and Gothamist helped cover.
The larger tragedy is a nationwide death of local news. Alt-weeklies are flailing as ad revenue dries up. The Village Voice, a legendary New York paper, published its final print issue in September. Houston Press just laid off its staff and ended its print edition this week. Countless stories won't be covered, because the journalistic institutions to tell them no longer exist. Who benefits from DNAinfo being shuttered? Billionaires. Shady landlords. Anyone DNAinfo reported critically on over the years. Who loses? Anyone who lives in the neighborhoods DNAinfo and Gothamist helped cover.
You want moneylosing local journalism, fund it yourself. Don't expect others to fund it for you.
There are plenty of local blogs out there that cover fairly low-level neighborhood news. They don't have massive readership but I see them shared all over facebook when they publish something interesting. The best part about it is the writers are mostly doing it as a hobby.
These newspapers were already losing money. He was paying for them out of his personal wealth. Forming a union is going to drive costs up, not down. They basically wanted to take more money out of his pocket. I would have closed them also.
Using money to take control of media. It worked for Gawker. Gawker's pretty well disliked for their tabloid journalism, but they did a lot of real journalism on the side and used the tabloid stuff to pay for it. That's why Thiel shut them down. They'd done exposes into some of his dirty dealings in finance (and no, it wasn't because they outed him as gay).
So get used to this. When they can't crush they'll buy and vice versa. If you want the kind of muck racking that shines a light on the bad parts of the world you've got to pay for it somehow. That used to be the tabloids, but folks seem to have forgotten that, and all that's left is corporate propaganda paid for to push their message.
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Now they have a union, buy a website and go employee owned. They were propped up by a billionaire until they were profitable, now capatalize on those contacts and get to work making real journalism. The future of capatilism is employee ownership. Because billionaires don't give a f.
Please. A guy who's using his personal cash to prop up money-losing city-branded "news" web sites decides that there's no prospect of the operations continuing, especially if his employees decide to install the overhead associated with paying union bosses and having to treat every employee as if they are all equally productive, motivated, resourceful, dedicated, and generally as valuable as the next. So he bows to the inevitable and shuts down to stop the bleeding. The OP, of course, has to spin this as Eeeevil Corporatism and the usual histrionics.
I wonder how the OP feels about the fact that the National Geographic media operation was quickly and spectacularly swirling the toiled and about to fold and take hundreds of jobs with it, without a single white knight showing up to bail them out and fix what was broken, except for (horror! tragedy!) Rupert Murdoch. Now they're back on their feet and solvent and writers, photographers, production people and the rest still have jobs there. Eeeeevil corporatism! Except it wouldn't have been evil if a notably lefty billionaire had used one of his companies to buy NatGeo, in which case that would have been great for journalism and everything else, la la la.
Paying professional people to produce media for an audience is a business. If it can't survive without generous patronage, then it needs to die and be reborn as part of someone's foundation or other personal project, or simply die because it can't produce the value that everyone working there wants to take home every week. Buggy whip factories, etc.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Heard an interview with one of the employees on the radio earlier this week.
The way it was done was a deliberate slap in the face to the employees.
There's some debate already whether Joe Ricketts violated labor laws.
I've no doubt he can show internet journalism isn't profitable. And anyone paying attention in 2008 (when he got into it) knew that, too.
The benefit Joe Ricketts gets from a "newspaper" is a place to shout from and a tax write off. It was never going to be profitable.
It was done a week after writers unionized and the last message shouted from the "newspaper" was crystal fscking clear:
You vote union? We vote scorched earth.
Now. Anybody else who still has a job--do you want a union?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Joe Ricketts and others like him need to learn what it's like to eat out of a dumpster for a change.
Just a reminder that 'Freedom of the Press' just means that the government can't officially sensor your speech. It in no way gives you a right to have your voice heard. In practical terms it's not the 'right' for you to have to be give access to an actual printing press or by extension a news paper column, it's just that the government can't keep you from owning one without the due course of law.
If you can't get people to listen to you enough then that's your problem, and complaining about it on Slashdot is more than useless. You might have a case for anti unionizing practices, but that's a different story all together.
Guy is running a newpaper that loses money. A change is put through that will make him lose considerably more money. So he decides it's not worth it. I am shocked.
Joe Ricketts carried those ungrateful, entitled fucks long enough. He has no moral obligation at all to keep paying them when they're not producing.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There's some debate already whether Joe Ricketts violated labor laws.
What labor law would that be? As you say, he can prove that the entire venture was loosing money. He closed it all down. You think that, just because the employees voted to unionize, the NLRB can force a company to remain open? It would be one thing if he fired all the employees and hired new ones. If he simply winds down the entire company, there isn't much a lawsuit is going to do.
Now. Anybody else who still has a job--do you want a union?
I've only had experience with a unionized position three times. All three times I was screwed over by nepotism, organizational politics and either lies or incompetence by the union reps. So no, no union for me thank you.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
We all assumed you did.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Though I guess it's hard to imagine that a left-wing news organization would be biased in favor of other left-wing journalists.
Puh-lease!
When my dad went into the hospital we ended up throwing his unopened newspapers away. A free local paper and we didn't even bother taking them out the plastic sleeve. It's littered with ads, the content isn't relevant, and it's not how people get news anymore.
Billionaire ownership of the media is a separate problem. The idea that money equals speech has unfortunately become deeply ingrained.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I am SURE they will all get better jobs with Amazon or Facetwit.
This strikes me as a "look at me" attempt by Newsweek, to hold themselves up as too big (to important) to fail, perhaps laying down a marker for government funding when the publication reaches a point of imminent financial failure.
Billionaires propped up these failing ventures longer than they would have otherwise existed.
It's often difficult to pivot with a business and failure to do so is why we are seeing businesses go under today. Local reporting doesn't have to die- but the business model local news papers have relied on may need to be replaced or otherwise adapted to make it work financially. I'm involved exclusively in reporting on local news in New Hampshire. I film important issues at the state house regularly, police abuse (which you'll NEVER see stock reporters doing, not on the street anyway), unconstitutional police check points, local politics, businesses, corruption, and similar. How many stories have you written that have gone viral? From sleeping cops to riots we've covered it and major intentional press swarmed in because of the work I've involved in. Stuff that would have never been reported on if not for a working local news business model.
You still seem to be laboring under the delusion that either side is less in the pocket of the 1% than the other. Both just work for different parts of the aristocracy.
The only difference is which particular billionaires profit.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's his money, they worked for him, half the sentiment here is n that he must continue to spend it because he is rich... socialism much?
see if I can get my IQ down under 40. I'm already stupid.
If your brain activity was any lower, doctors would legally be able to harvest your organs.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
There were a hundred writers, so we can estimate at least another 50 employees selling ads, doing to accounting, running the servers, etc. So minimum $150,000 / month for salaries. Employee benefits, payroll taxes, office space, etc would be at least $50,000 / month. So bare minimum expenses $200,000 / month. Revenue was about $110,000/ month. Why would the writers want to work another job to support the $80,000 / month such a site loses, and work at the new employee-owned company?
But now that the advertising revenue has shriveled the public do not appear to be willing to pay to read about the local flower show, a traffic accident, what the Mayor did last week or who married whom. If you were involved in any local event, you probably already know about it. If you weren't you probably don't care - and aren't willing to pay to find out about it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
If there's a demand.. something else will rise to fill it. If there's no actual demand, then it won't really be missed.
TMZ already does this. Ironically they sometimes break news before the big guys because they can afford the reporters. I don't remember the exact numbers, but a NYTimes reporter was lamenting how TMZ had like a dozen reporters at the LA courthouse all the time and the NYT's only had one occasionally. TMZ will pay for tips which also gives them an advantage according the NYT reporter. Interesting times. And yes, full disclosure, I check out TMZ's website from time to time to see if they got a scoop.
"It" happened because "it" didn't really happen and you can't prove it.
You can shut the business down and open a different business later. That part is no problem.
The problem, or lack of problem, comes down to the actual decision to close it and if they left some sort of trail that makes it clear it was shut down over the union. It has nothing to do with if the business was shut down, or if you started a new one; it comes down to why, and what was documented about that question.
Retaliation over labor organizing is illegal, but failing after labor organizes isn't. Nor is trying again later. But shutting them down because labor organizes is illegal. So it depends largely on if he said stupid shit to his employees while trying to talk them out of unionizing. If he said stupid shit he might be screwed. And all I know about the guy is: he's saying stupid shit now, on the same subject.
If this comment is amongst the best so far, then Slashdot has far greater problems than our moderation system.
Everybody does something wrong every now and then. And if all else fails just buy their parent company. That's the trouble with billionaires. You give somebody that much money they can do whatever they want.
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And it's a federal offense.
This DOJ will be unlikely to do anything, but it times gone past...
Sigh. It's the dark ages all over again
Boy the way Glenn Miller played
Songs that made the hit parade.
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days.
And you knew who you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men,
Mister we could use a man
Like Herbert Hoover again.
Didn't need no welfare state,
Everybody pulled his weight.
Gee our old LaSalle ran great.
Those were the days.
Archie is laughing his ass off!
The original Wonkette wasn't fired. Gawker's site made her so famous that she landed a book deal, and left the site to focus on promoting her book-writing career.
I agree with that the style of Gawker's blogs - Valleywag was another one of them - was extremely entertaining while also being informative with occasional bursts of actual investigative journalism.
Funny, I just went to MotherJones.com for the first time in ages. I used to read it in the 1980's a lot. You can look up who owns it, funding, advertising issues, political bias, etc. right on the website. More transparent than most.
(I predict a lot of people will not believe what is asserted on Mother Jones about their political bias).
Worse, for a full 20 hours after the news broke, Gothamist.com and DNAinfo.com effectively didn't exist: Any link to the sites showed only Ricketts's statement about his decision, which claims the business was not profitable enough to support the journalism.
"Effectively didn't exist"? You mean the archives were gone. Which is bad, I agree, but is that really worse than closing the business without even making an attempt to sell it?
Nope, no sig
true that.
"Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user friendly. It just happens to be selective on who it makes friendship with"
Can the (supposed) editors stop confusing the headlines with the editorials? It's beginning to get rather annoying. And they might want to get a platform shoe for the left foot.
And yet, subscriptions are at an all time high and the NY Times has never had higher reader revenue.
Been listening to the Twit-er pResident too much again.
They died because, in response to the arrival of the internet, editors all freaked out, lost their shit, and adopted the click-bait, tabloid model.
"Investigative Journalism" takes money, time and above all contacts
None of which are cheap
And THAT is why the dumb popular pulp rules the newsroom
No more ad revenue, no more Jack Andersons and Seymour Hershes