
Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters out of a job - aaronbrethorst
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2019/12/bloomberg-just-bought-citylab-and-put-half-its-reporters-out-of-a-job/
======
awillen
"But the site started to show signs of struggle earlier this year when the
Atlantic laid off CityLab’s dedicated business staff. “The writing’s been on
the wall for a long time,” one of the staffers said about CityLab’s future
with the Atlantic. Another staffer said that during the meeting Atlantic
management had announcing its sale to Bloomberg Media, the management made it
clear “that the company is really focusing on the Atlantic and that they just
feel that they can’t focus and invest in CityLab to make it robust.”"

That's in the second to last paragraph in the article, which really makes this
feel unfairly biased. If those jobs were doomed anyway, it's plausible that
Bloomberg's saving several jobs that would be lost, instead of causing the
loss of jobs as this title implies.

~~~
mc32
I think one issue I had as an occasional reader is that they were too invested
in one perspective only.

Surely we need to study and be curious for things which can improve city life.
There is a lot of good in that.

The one peeve I had is that "city-first PoV" made them a bit myopic and only
wanted to see things though the lens of city life to the neglect of
alternatives.

~~~
CydeWeys
That's the topic they focus on though, and they do it well. It's CityLab, not
CountryLife.

~~~
mc32
I agree with that and don’t have a problem with that but their attitude is
“we’re right and they’re wrong and we'll make them”. CountryLife I would say
wouldn’t be as ideological about how people should live their lives.

~~~
CydeWeys
You've got some rose-colored glasses on if you don't think people out in the
country are ideological about how people should live their lives.

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sandoooo
Wait, so let me get this straight: _nine people_ lost their jobs over this and
it's front page HN? Are we gonna have a nuclear war the next time a startup
closes up shop?

Is there something special about The Nine that separates them from the
hundreds of thousands of scientists and doctors and engineers and burger
flippers who get laid off everyday?

Y'know, like, other than having journalist friends?

~~~
nabilhat
It's not about the nine people. It's about the perceived guileless neutering
of a media outlet by a far more powerful entity with financial attachments to
a financially formidable presidential candidate.

Of course, it's too early to know if the perceived outcome is the intended or
actual outcome. Whatever the outcome, this is still an event remarkable far
beyond the bounds of those nine journalist's social circles, regardless of
where the actual cause falls on the continuum between incompetence and malice.

~~~
mc32
But they were let go before the deal happened, so if anyone is the baddie it's
CityLab/The Atlanic itself!

~~~
busterarm
Well, the remaining folks could have gone anywhere, but now that they're
employees of Bloomberg Media, they're expressly forbidden for writing anything
_critical_ of any Democratic candidate for President.

------
bransonf
> “I don’t want the reporters I’m paying to write a bad story about me,” he
> said on Radio Iowa. “I don’t want them to be independent.”

Did I read that right? “Don’t want them to be independent”

What’s the point of journalism then?

~~~
cdumler
We don't _have_ journalism in the Unite States any more. We have a product to
generate clicks and eyeballs so that ads can be sold.

~~~
malandrew
Couldn't agree more. Journalism hasn't been independent ever since advertisers
became the primary the customer and readers became the product being sold.

~~~
pmiller2
When has it been otherwise? I don’t have numbers, but I suspect print
subscriptions typically only cover delivery and printing costs, with maybe a
little surplus beyond that. Advertising has always been what paid the bills
for print publications.

~~~
barry-cotter
This has _always_ been the predominant business model for periodicals. The
other, much smaller alternative is paying a lot of money for access to what
amounts to research, and it barely exists outside the financial markets.

------
dpeck
Journalism is a loss leader for people who have or want power.

It has seldom been anything else and with the current direct of things that is
unlikely to change in the near future.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Who else has the money and drive to pay a bunch of artists—writers in this
case—and publish their work.

If anyone did set out to be fair and unbiased the work would immediately be
co-opted by someone’s agenda, someone who either has or wants power, or more
of it.

------
dsalzman
Might not have been the right financial model or the right content for
Bloomberg, but the work CityLab does is essential to fix these large problems.
Maybe city sourced funding model would work...

~~~
Merrill
One of the recent HN postings from CityLab was authored by Brooks Rainwater,
who works for the National League of Cities in their Center for City
Solutions. [https://www.nlc.org/program-initiative/center-for-city-
solut...](https://www.nlc.org/program-initiative/center-for-city-solutions)

NLC appears to have a "city sourced funding model". They have a web site
[https://www.nlc.org/about-nlc](https://www.nlc.org/about-nlc) and a blog
[https://citiesspeak.org/](https://citiesspeak.org/)

------
AYBABTME
That article is so clearly biased, why is this front page? The author clearly
is trying to grind their axe, instead of reporting news in a matter of fact
way. First of, the headline claims Bloomberg the company laid off half the
staff, while in the following sentence saying that it's actually the Atlantic
who's doing the firing. But that's not done before putting a picture of
Bloomberg the candidate, first, to make sure the headline and the picture are
what strikes people's imagination.

Rather disgusting.

------
consultutah
That’s too bad. CityLab has great content.

------
gbronner
Bloomberg has its own content management systems, and has data resources and
such that CL doesn't have. CL was already losing money -- no harm in right-
sizing it.

------
WheelsAtLarge
It's a shame but I'm sure they are reducing staff with a duplicate function at
Bloomberg.

This will continue to happen to publications that cant find a way to finance
their operations. Employing a team to publish a publication is expensive so I
dought subscriptions alone will be enough to support a team. I think it will
have to be a combination of advertising, subscriptions and something else
which we still have to define.

~~~
cgb223
I guess the question is how does a larger publication like Bloomberg make
money whereas a more specialized one like CityLab struggle?

Maybe the smaller publications can mimic their business model?

~~~
thawaway1837
Bloomberg News likely does not make money (I.e. a profit).

The terminals do and very likely subsidize the news.

If the News side makes money, it’s likely because they get to share all the
administrative costs with the terminal side.

~~~
cgb223
What’s a terminal in this context?

~~~
bransonf
Probably referring to the Bloomberg Terminal [0] as in the hardware/software
product that offers real-time economic data and enables a large portion of the
market’s electronic trading.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Terminal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Terminal)

------
peterwwillis
_" But the site started to show signs of struggle earlier this year when the
Atlantic laid off CityLab’s dedicated business staff. “The writing’s been on
the wall for a long time,” one of the staffers said about CityLab’s future
with the Atlantic."_

So CityLab was going to get axed, but in the end half of them get to keep
their jobs, yet the article's slant is Bloomberg is a bad guy because of it.

------
brohoolio
I’m shocked so much great content is put out by such a great team. Hopefully
Bloomberg can invest more into the business.

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say_it_as_it_is
Bloomberg Media uses feel-good opinion pieces to accumulate trust and
interest. Then, it uses this to drive a very specific agenda from the top
brass. The company has used this strategy for years. Sheeple continue to
upvote these pieces and serve special interests, though. The acquisition of
CityLab is intended to capture more social capital and drive more political
agenda when Mike Bloomberg makes his phone call. Firing half a company is
essentially killing the mission and culture that was CityLab and confirms the
acquisition strategy.

My advice to those who were fired is to organize and continue what you created
elsewhere.

Note that Bloomberg has shills and PR working among us on Hacker News. They
also have sentiment bots searching for comments such as mine and organize down
votes. Hacker News Admins are not equipped to handle modern day communication
control by powerful interests like Bloomberg.

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robgibbons
_Breaks pool stick over knee, throws one half on floor of newsroom_

