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Citing “economic headwinds hurting our business,” Jim Spanfeller, leader of Jezebel’s parent company, G/O Media, announced a publishing suspension and layoffs.
By Benjamin Mullin, Johnny Diaz and Amanda Holpuch
The website’s parent company, Jezebel, announced Thursday that it will close the site and lay off its staff, prompting economic hardship and a shift in public priorities.
The layoffs will affect 23 people, adding Jezebel’s team, Jim Spanfeller, chief executive of G/O Media, said in a memo to corporate staff. He also announced that G/O Media’s editorial director, Merrill Brown, would be leaving the company.
“Although G/O Media is an efficient and agile organization, we are immune to the economic headwinds that are shaking our business,” Spanfeller said.
“Unfortunately, our style of business and the audiences we serve through our network do not align with Jezebel’s,” he added.
Spanfeller said G/O Media had tried to sell Jezebel and had spoken to “more than two dozen potential buyers” but had discovered a new home for the site. The company owns and operates several virtual media outlets, including Gizmodo, Quartz, and Deadspin. .
News of the site’s closure marked the beginning of a revolution in feminist writing on the internet that Jezebel helped launch when it was introduced in 2007. A wave of sites followed, including DoubleX and Slate’s Reductress, and many of them adopted Jezebel’s incisive gender vision. Politics and racism. Its writers were also known for their concise prose and unconventional short story angles.
Anna Holmes, who founded Jezebel and left the publication in 2010, woke up Thursday to the news of the site’s closure and said she was still processing the news. Sadness, gratitude and pride were part of the combination of feelings he felt, he said.
“I’m just grateful that I had the opportunity to create this together with an organization of other smart, attractive and funny women,” said Holmes, who was also the paper’s first editor.
Holmes, 50, said he hired through Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, to publish the publication in 2007. Last week, he reflected on Jezebel’s legacy in an essay for The New Yorker, calling the site a catalyst for discussion about “sexuality. “attacks and harassment, unequal pay, and cultural representations of women. “
Many Jezebel alumni have found good luck in major publications, such as the New York Times and The New Yorker.
Jezebel sparked debates about gender, sexism, and power, which have since become a vital component of culture and have set new expectations about what the mainstream media deserves to cover and how.
On its first day, the website issued a challenge: It would award $10,000 to the most productive unpublished edition of a symbol that appeared on the cover of a women’s magazine. The goal is to draw attention to unrealistic beauty standards. The winning photo, taken from a Redbook magazine article about country artist Faith Hill, published two months later and garnered national attention.
In a statement, the Writers Guild of America, East, which represents the company’s journalists, said it was “devastated but not surprised” by the news of Jezebel’s suspension.
“Jezebel has been a pillar of fearless journalism and vital cultural observation since 2007 and has left an indelible mark on the media landscape,” it reads.
Kady Ruth Ashcraft, a senior editor at Jezebel who was fired Thursday, said she has been reading the site since 2007 and that it “has shaped who I am as a woman, as a writer, as a pop culture obsessive and as a political obsessive. “
He said he won an invitation to a human resources meeting at 10 a. m. m. , in which she and her colleagues were informed of her dismissal. The company had been difficult to work for in recent weeks, after the news site Axios reported last October that the logo was up for sale. In the end, Jezebel operates with a “small team” of “incredibly talented journalists,” Ashcraft said.
“I’m sad to have been fired today, but if I’m honest, I’m even sadder for this amazing online page, which has featured so many careers, but has also opened so many people’s minds,” she said.
“This ending seems a little more heartbreaking to me than the personal loss of a job,” she added, “because I can get a new job, but it’s the end of Jezebel and it’s very heartbreaking. bad. “
Benjamin Mullin reports on news and entertainment from key corporations. Contact Ben securely at Signal at 1-530-961-3223 or by email at benjamin. mullin@nytimes. com. Learn more about Benjamin Mullin
Johnny Diaz is a general journalist covering existing events. In the past he worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Boston Globe. Learn more about Johnny Diaz
Amanda Holpuch is a reporter. Learn more about Amanda Holpuch
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