
DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down - donohoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/nyregion/dnainfo-gothamist-shutting-down.html
======
katedye
It doesn't really support the theory that billionaires create jobs...

On a more serious note, this was clearly anti-union. But there is some truth
to the claims about profitability. I don't know if DNAinfo was profitable or
not, but I'm not surprised their margins were thin. There are huge differences
in tech adoption in publishing. A site like the Washington Post with a strong
tech influence (i.e. bezos money) has an incredibly advanced ad tech stack and
optimize the programmatic advertising market. They probably have complex
models that price their ads based on historical data and user information, and
they've begun to productize their CMS. Whereas publishers that rely on direct
sales with brands struggle to stay afloat and without a decent-sized dev team,
profitability can be a distant dream.

~~~
look_lookatme
DNAinfo was never profitable in its 8 year existence. With the union taking
root it was probably never going to see a return. In my opinion the only
unethical thing here was taking down the archives. Total severance seemed
fine.

~~~
katedye
They could have sold to a company that would have overhauled their
monetization, but you're right that it isn't _unethical_ to shut-down
(unnecessary, maybe).

~~~
notyourday
Opex loses is liability. Company with no opex is an asset.

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kevinburke
At some point someone who was not billionaire owner Joe Ricketts had to
actually type the commands into the website to entirely remove the old
content. I don't think that person should have done that, especially because
the writers rely on those clips to show new employers to get hired. At the
very least that person should have pushed back and allowed writers a week or
more to download their best articles to show to new employers.

We need to think pretty hard as an industry about the ethics of the things we
are doing and the consequences of our actions on the real world.

~~~
reaperducer
>the writers rely on those clips to show new employers to get hired.

The writers will have their own copies of their clips. Nobody in their right
mind would rely on a (potentially ex-) employer as a perpetual source of their
material.

Radio reporters save MP3's. TV reporters save DVDs (and sometimes mp4s).
Newspaper reporters save PDFs. These journalists should have done the same.

~~~
kevinburke
My Twitter feed, which has in the past hour seen a few examples of writers
lamenting the fact they don't have clips to show new employers, seems to
contradict this point.

~~~
JoshMnem
Send them to archive.org.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160428013428/gothamist.com/](https://web.archive.org/web/20160428013428/gothamist.com/)

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reustle
Fortunately, the Internet Archive seems to have collected most of the
Gothamists articles (eg
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170902102617/http://gothamist....](https://web.archive.org/web/20170902102617/http://gothamist.com/2017/08/29/stuffed_ice_cream_nyc.php))

It was such a great resource when I lived in NYC, it will be missed.

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subpixel
If I were Craig Newmark I would launch a DNAinfo clone in every market where
Craigslist revenues support it. I suspect that would be dozens of cities.

In fact, I think I'd sort of feel like that was my responsibility, having
killed the classified business that allowed local newspapers to fund quality
local reporting. This has done perhaps more harm than is realized:

"You can draw a straight line from the decline of local journalism to our
current political morass. It’s as plain as the nose on your face."
[https://twitter.com/lpolgreen/status/926204411789049860](https://twitter.com/lpolgreen/status/926204411789049860)

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CPLX
A week after they voted to unionize.

And they actually took down the entire archives, thousands and thousands of
well reported stories.

This is a special kind of fucked up.

~~~
notatoad
It sounds like the same publisher is shutting down a bunch of non-unionized
publications as well, so maybe not related.

~~~
notatoad
well, now they've admitted it's union-related. so much for giving them the
benefit of the doubt.

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FLGMwt
This is very disappointing. DNAinfo Chicago was the best source for
neighborhood coverage.

I'm sad and more than a little bit outraged on behalf of the staff and
reporters. Sorry all :(

~~~
cozzyd
Agreed. Way better than the Tribune, which seems to be more for suburbanites.

~~~
mortenjorck
Suburbanites and sports fans. This may be a somewhat unfair characterization,
but the Tribune has for some time felt to me like a sports paper with
additional sections on business and local news.

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Alex3917
Given that it's illegal to retaliate against employees for unionizing, would
shutting down the business entirely in response to unionization trigger legal
liability?

~~~
eli
No shutting down the whole business is the one legal form of retaliation

~~~
theyregreat
There is more than one legal form of union-busting. They could’ve reorganized
departments and “eliminated positions,” but instead they chose to throw
everyone out on the street as collective punishment to send a message.

This is why reporters need to form independent, co-op, subscribers-funded news
in order to avoid the strings and slavery of corporate advertisers and
exploitative owners. Corporate news doesn’t work.

~~~
malandrew
These reporters are always free to start their own blog, alone or
collectively.

~~~
anigbrowl
Sure, it's not like a new business has any operating expenses or cashflow
requirements.

~~~
notyourday
So DNAinfo owners should run an unprofitable business but the reporters should
not?

~~~
anigbrowl
Profit, startup capital, and cash flow are quite different things. I don't
believe that Joey Rickett's decision was a coincidence motivated by pure
fiscal math either.

~~~
manigandham
If it was profitable, others can do it themselves. Plenty of bank loans
available.

If it wasn't profitable, then the owner was essentially donating money until
now and this whole thing would've ended even sooner under other conditions.

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masterleep
When your company loses money every month and is being kept afloat by a single
rich guy, probably unwise to vote for the union.

~~~
notyourday
Don't tell it to people who don't keep copies of what they write.

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subculture
Reminds me when Gawker went down and Tom Scocca wrote: Gawker always said it
was in the business of publishing true stories. Here is one last true story:
You live in a country where a billionaire can put a publication out of
business. A billionaire can pick off an individual writer and leave that
person penniless and without legal protection.

If you want to write stories that might anger a billionaire, you need to work
for another billionaire yourself, or for a billion-dollar corporation. The law
will not protect you. There is no freedom in this world but power and money.

[http://gawker.com/gawker-was-murdered-by-
gaslight-1785456581](http://gawker.com/gawker-was-murdered-by-
gaslight-1785456581)

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robtaylor
This is cultural vandalism driven by spite.

~~~
notyourday
Not really.

I could never figure out how the hell do they make money. Their ads were crap.
They begged for interns to come to work for them for free in both publishing
(writing) and sales. Sponsored content posts were garbage. If you looked at
the comments you realized that the active user base would have problem paying
$12 for lunch. Tech stack was garbage. And it had way too many people who were
drawing salaries.

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aaronbrethorst
One week after employees voted to unionize.

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Apreche
Where the hell do we get local NYC news from now?

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TroubleTicket
Google to the rescue:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+city+local+news&oq=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+city+local+news&oq=new+york+city+local+news)

~~~
TuringNYC
Google Search just shows you what is out there. There is now less material out
there.

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losteverything
And this..

The websites' archives have also been completely wiped, leaving no trace of
past articles.

There should be clear outrage!

~~~
Sangermaine
This is retaliation for the staff unionizing. The wiping is a petty final
insult to try to deprive them of even their body of work.

~~~
reaperducer
Maybe. Or perhaps the potential unionization was the straw that broke the
camel's back at an operation that was already hemorrhaging money.

I can see someone running some projections in a spreadsheet of how much
unionization would cost the company, which was already losing money, and
someone else deciding it's just not worth it anymore.

~~~
SapphireSun
If unions can see the budget sheet and negotiate accordingly, they wouldn't
kill the company. They want to keep their jobs, this is nonsense.

~~~
malandrew
Why should unions get to see the budget and negotiate? It's not their business
and they aren't entitled to that information. If they don't think their salary
is fair, they can always seek work elsewhere.

~~~
SapphireSun
Congrats, you just added one more nail in the coffin of capitalism.

~~~
malandrew
No worries. Socialism's coffin was nailed shut and buried long ago.

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chasing
Doing this right after your employees unionize makes you an asshole.
Especially if you're a billionaire. Especially if you delete the archives.

But.

He's a Trump supporter. So he's probably firmly of the belief that the little
people are trying to steal too much out of the pockets of the wealthy.

(I'm also curious exactly what "good journalism" means to him, because a lot
of "good journalism" coming from that side of the fence isn't "good
jounrnalism" in the traditional sense of the phrase.)

I hope the journalists involved can build themselves something new.

And I hope this doesn't cool future attempts to unionize.

~~~
eps
> _Doing this right after your employees unionize makes you an asshole._

No, it doesn't.

Gothamist is not a small coal mining town where workers have all but one
choice of an employer. There unions made sense. You don't bunch together, you
and your family starve. Here, unionization is an attempt to squeeze more perks
and money from their existing employer, simply because it's easier and more
comfortable to do than to look for another job.

~~~
anigbrowl
Did they go out on strike? No. they have every right to act collectively if
that's how they prefer to structure their labor. Either freedom of association
means something or it doesn't.

