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G/O Media has formally shut down feminist web site Jezebel, because the media firm is hit with a spherical of layoffs.
In a memo despatched to workers on Thursday obtained by The Impartial, CEO Jim Spanfeller confirmed that the female-driven information outlet shall be suspended completely. “As of this week we’re making the very, very tough choice to droop publication of Jezebel,” he wrote to staff. “Few selections over the course of my profession have been as excruciating, and I wish to clarify that is under no circumstances a mirrored image on the Jezebel editorial workforce.”
He continued: “Sadly, our enterprise mannequin and the audiences we serve throughout our community didn’t align with Jezebel’s. And when that grew to become clear, we undertook an expansive seek for a brand new, maybe higher dwelling which may guarantee Jezebel a path ahead.”
The corporate was reportedly unable to discover a purchaser for Jezebel, as Spanfeller famous that editorial director Lea Goldman met with “over two dozen potential patrons” however “couldn’t discover Jez a brand new dwelling.”
Within the memo, he praised Jezebel’s dedication to overlaying reproductive rights following the Supreme Court docket overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022. “Their pressing, breakthrough protection of reproductive rights on this post-Roe period, in addition to different key points core to trendy girls, affirmed the model’s storied legacy as the web site that modified girls’s media without end,” Spanfeller stated. “With the suspension of Jezebel’s operations, we should sadly half methods with their extremely gifted editorial workers. I wish to thank the location’s workforce, each previous and current, for his or her dedication, fearless voices, and indelible contributions to our tradition. You modified the sport.”
Along with shutting down the feminist information website, the corporate can also be shedding 23 editorial staffers throughout its properties. In keeping with Will Sommer, media reporter for The Washington Publish, Jezebel staffers have already been kicked off the company-wide Slack messaging service, in addition to e-mail.
Jezebel was based by author Anna Holmes in 2007 below the Gawker Media umbrella. Holmes launched Jezebel as a option to higher serve Gawker.com’s feminine readership, and it quickly grew to become an influential feminist voice overlaying modern-day girls’s points. Jezebel was later bought to Univision Communications in August 2016 after its acquisition of Gawker Media, earlier than changing into a part of G/O Media in 2019.
Final October, Axios reported that Jezebel was optioned off to patrons at a number of media shops, together with BDG, HollywoodLife, and Pricey Media. Editor-in-chief Laura Bassett resigned from Jezebel in August, as she took a swipe at G/O Media’s administration in a resignation letter obtained by The Each day Beast.
“If I’m not allowed to interchange my deputy editor, give any of my writers raises or promotions ever for the nice work they do, or fill any of the half dozen open author slots I’ve had for a 12 months, it’s clear that any pathway for development I had right here has been intentionally lower off and that I’ve finished all I can do to make this website what it could possibly be given cheap sources,” she wrote.
Bassett, who took over as Jezebel editor-in-chief in September 2021, is the seventh head editor throughout G/O Media’s ten web sites to stop during the last eight months.
The shutting down of Jezebel comes amidst a 12 months of huge layoffs within the journalism business. Vice Media Group has undergone a second spherical of layoffs this 12 months alone, after shedding workers in April and submitting for Chapter 11 chapter in Might. In the meantime, BuzzFeed Information skilled its personal shut down in April, as dad or mum firm Buzzfeed introduced it was slashing 15 per cent of its workforce.
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