A downturn in advertising led to the "excruciating" decision, its owner said.

Feminist media site Jezebel is suspending publication, as its owner reckons with a downturn in online advertising.

G/O Media chief Jim Spanfeller announced the move in a memo to staff, calling it an “excruciating” decision.

  • PeachMan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    848·
    1 year ago

    You might not care much about Jezebel, but their parent company, G/O Media, also owns Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, Deadspin, The Root, The A.V. Club, The Takeout, The Onion, The Inventory, and Quartz.

    So if you like any of those (Lemmy fucking loves The Onion, right?) then this news should concern you a bit.

    Also, RIP Jezebel. Sometimes they were edgy and weird for no reason but they also did some solid reporting over the years.

    • RobotToaster@mander.xyzEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      As much as I like the onion, I have no clue what their business model is. Making funny headlines that nobody ever clicks on doesn’t make money.

      The others never seemed that useful.

    • shrodes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      Last I heard I think they had lost or fired 7 Editor in Chiefs across their holdings in the past 8 months or so. From what I’ve heard they are run pretty terribly for the people that work there and G/O just generally suck.

      The former Kotaku EIC in particular did not have nice things to say about them on The Games Press podcast

    • dan1101@lemm.eeEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      I always saw Jezebel as sort of celebrity tabloid, guess I wasn’t there in the golden days or just didn’t give it a chance.

    • realharo@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      It’s a bit funny because people on Lemmy seem to viscerally hate all online advertising and everything connected to it, yet here many of them are, lamenting the end of a company caused by not enough ad revenue.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Feminist media site Jezebel is suspending publication, as its owner reckons with a downturn in online advertising.

    Founded in 2007 under the Gawker Media umbrella, Jezebel pioneered the sharp, dishy coverage that came to characterise many digital upstarts.

    Mr Spanfeller said he had hoped G/O - which also publishes sites such as The Onion, Jalopnik and Gizmodo - would be able to steer through “dark times” in the industry, but “could hold out no longer”.

    In 2020, a union representing writers at G/O called on the firm’s private equity owners to replace Mr Spanfeller, saying that traffic to its sites had fallen under his leadership, according to a Wall Street Journal report at the time.

    “This callous layoff has everything to do with G/O Media’s ineffectual management and nothing to do with the talent of our fellow workers, who should still be here with us,” said Writers Guild of America East members at The Onion, which was also affected by the job cuts.

    “A well-run company would have moved away from an advertising model, but instead they are shuttering the brand entirely because of their strategic and commercial ineptitude,” the union said.

    The original article contains 556 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!