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发帖数: 5093 | 1 Ricketts Shuts Down Local News Sites DNAInfo And Gothamist In Wake Of Union
Vote
Billionaire Joe Ricketts shut down the local news websites DNAInfo and
Gothamist at 5:00 p.m. yesterday, hanging out the internet equivalent of a
gone-out-of-business sign on the front door.
Both sites -- and Gothamist’s companion sites in Chicago, Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Washington -- all point to a memo in which Ricketts said he
was shuttering the business with regret.
Ricketts said he started DNAInfo in 2009, “when few people were investing
in media companies.” But, he said, “I believed an opportunity existed to
build a successful company that would report unbiased neighborhood news and
information.”
The company acquired Gothamist, which also specialized in local coverage, in
March of this year, and merged the operations. Ricketts said he was unable
to make the numbers work. Ricketts wrote, “DNAinfo is, at the end of the
day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they
are to endure.
“And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a
successful business, in the end, that progress hasn't been sufficient to
support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of
journalism on which the company was founded.”
Not mentioned in Ricketts’ message is the fact that on Oct. 26, the
editorial staff of DNAInfo/Gothamist voted overwhelmingly to unionize.
The Writers Guild of America, East announced that after a bitter fight in
which management waged an anti-union campaign “that included threats to
people’s jobs,” 25 of 27 editorial employees voted in favor of the union.
The sites in other cities were not part of the union effort.
During the organizing campaign, Ricketts was not shy about expressing his
distaste for unions. In a September blog post entitled, “Why I’m Against
Unions At Businesses I Create,” Ricketts said, “I know that keeping a
company growing and thriving requires focus and tireless effort by everyone.
Indeed, in my opinion, the essential esprit de corps that every successful
company needs can’t exist when employees and ownership see themselves as
being on opposite ends of a seesaw. Everyone at a company – owners and
employees alike – need to be sitting on the same end of the seesaw because
the world is sitting on the other end.”
He added, “I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic
that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed. And that
corrosive dynamic makes no sense in my mind where an entrepreneur is staking
his capital on a business that is providing jobs and promoting innovation.”
In a memo to staff, the company said that employees will be paid through Feb
.2, 2018. Ricketts said management would reach out promptly to the WGAE to
engage in good-faith negotiation about the effects of the planned shutdown.
A total of 115 editorial jobs are being lost.
Putting the impact of the union campaign aside, media organizations that
focus on local news coverage have had trouble making the money to survive.
DNAInfo has never turned a profit, according to The New York Times.
Patch, started by AOL in 2007, was ballyhooed as a network of hyperlocal
newssites across the country. Each local site would cover its own territory.
The company struggled, was sold in 2014 and after substantial staff cuts,
now says it is turning a profit. But it shares a lot of content across its
more than 1,000 sites.
Alt-weeklies, alternative newspapers that specialize in local coverage, have
taken a hit as well.
The Village Voice, one of the oldest local publications, announced in August
that it was qutting a print edition and going online only.
Baltimore City Paper announced it will cease publication at the end of the
year, although a group is trying a crowd-funding effort to keep it alive.
The owners of Washington City Paper announced last month that they have put
that title up for sale.
All of the stories of struggling local news operations come down to one
common theme: money, or the lack of it.
Online advertising is hard to come by. And online operations are not immune
from the same economic forces that are driving dailies to cut pages and the
staffers that cover local news.
On top of it all, the right business model remains elusive.
Ricketts, whether prompted by the union vote or not, is done with his local
news operations. But he closed his gone-out-of-business note by saying, “I'
m hopeful that in time, someone will crack the code on a business that can
support exceptional neighborhood storytelling for I believe telling those
stories remains essential.”
Paul Fletcher writes about journalism and the business of the news media. He
served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists
from 2015-16. Follow him @paulfletcher | L*****d
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