US start-up The Messenger has shut down lower than a yr after launching. All articles had been eliminated on Wednesday, January 31, and an insider instructed the New York Post that “the positioning will go darkish.” About 300 staffers who had been working is not going to get severance, the supply mentioned. The website now has a clean web page with ‘information@themessenger.com’ written.
Co-founder and CEO Jimmy Finkelstein had raised $50 million to launch the positioning in May final yr. However, this week, Finkelstein had been struggling to safe funding.
In truth, the positioning’s journalists not too long ago questioned a directive from editors to take away articles on Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York, owing to Finkelstein’s shut relationship with the previous president, Semafor reported.
“This will go down as one of many largest busts of all time,” a media professional mentioned. “The Messenger might be remembered because the Titanic of publishing disasters.”
Finkelstein aspired to see The Messenger compete with the likes of The Los Angeles Times. He can also be believed to have paid big sums to rent journalists from different publications.
“What in the end killed The Messenger was lack of message — and conceitedness,” the business supply mentioned. “Hundreds of individuals left nice jobs with the promise of making one thing higher — which turned out to be a giant lie.”
Another insider mentioned, “It’s surprising how badly Jimmy dealt with this.”
Jordan Hoffman, who was a movie critic at The Messenger, wrote on X, “The very last thing I noticed in The Messenger’s slack was a panicked colleague writing “wait, what about our insurance coverage protection, I’ve a surgical procedure boo—” after which all of us obtained booted out!!!”
In one other submit, he wrote, “All I do know is that if I had been to launch a media start-up I’d remember to hire a complete ground of a downtown Manhattan skyscraper that was 9/10ths empty all day… after which fail to inform my staff they had been laid off till they examine it within the New York Times.”
Messenger shut down after a collection of media layoffs in current occasions, together with at The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Time, Sports Illustrated, Tech Crunch, NBC News and Business Insider.