Jezebel, a feminist US news site, was shut down with 23 people laid off and no plans for the outlet to resume publication, as its owner reckons with a downturn in online advertising.
G/O Media, which owns Jezebel and other sites including Gizmodo and the Onion, announced the closure in a memo to staff, which was obtained by the Guardian.
“Unfortunately, our business model and the audiences we serve across our network did not align with Jezebel’s,” Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive of G/O Media, wrote in the memo, which was sent to staff on Thursday morning.
“And when that became clear, we undertook an expansive search for a new, perhaps better home that might ensure Jezebel a path forward. It became a personal mission of Lea Goldman, who worked tirelessly on the project, talking with over two dozen potential buyers.
“It is a testament to Jezebel’s heritage and bona fides that so many players engaged us. Still, despite every effort, we could not find Jez a new home.”
In response to the shuttering, the Writers Guild of America-East, which represents G/O Media staffers, issued a statement condemning Spanfeller.
“The company would have moved away from an advertising model”
“Jezebel has been a pillar of fearless journalism and important cultural commentary since 2007 and made an indelible mark on the media landscape,” the statement read, before adding: “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. Jezebel was a good website.”
Susan Rinkunas, a senior reporter at Jezebel, told the Guardian that it was “unconscionable that the company is shutting down its only politics site, which did hard-hitting reporting on abortion, ahead of the 2024 elections.
“Readers everywhere will be worse off without Jezebel,” she added.
Audra Heinrichs, a staff writer at Jezebel, told the Guardian she was “certainly not surprised” at the site’s closure, but was “heartbroken” that both G/O Media and Spanfeller “unceremoniously gutted Jezebel, a pillar of fearless feminist journalism in digital media and the website I’ve been fortunate to call home for nearly two years”.
“Its demise in the wake of Dobbs and in the run-up to the 2024 election in which abortion will no doubt be a significant part of the conversation is not only undue, but despicable,” she said.
Difficult times for journalism
In the memo to Jezebel staff, the Daily Beast reported, Spanfeller praised journalists’ coverage of reproductive rights in the wake of the supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
Spanfeller added that he had not “given up” on Jezebel, the Daily Beast said, despite G/O Media’s decision to shut it down.
“Media is nothing if not resilient. So are its practitioners,” Spanfeller wrote to staff. “I will keep you apprised if circumstances change.”
Jezebel is the latest new media brand to succumb to a downturn in the industry. The closure and layoffs come at a difficult time for US journalism.
Vice Media is continuing to restructure after emerging from bankruptcy. Earlier this year, Buzzfeed News shut down.
In October, the Washington Post announced plans to cut 240 jobs through a voluntary redundancy scheme, while earlier this year the Los Angeles Times said it would lay off 10% of its newsroom staff.
In an essay this year, Ben Smith, former editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News, credited Jezebel with ushering in a new era for media, saying it was one of the “first places to crystallize the powerful forces that would define social media over the next decade: politics and identity”.
Sources: Guardian, BBC, Variety