Alternative Media Outlets Gothamist and DNAInfo Abruptly Wiped Out By RW Owner, Just One Week After Employees Vote Successfully To Unionize.

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 5:26pm

As major newsrooms all over the world continue to hemorrhage reporters and coverage, alternative news media on the web have filled some of the void. One such niche for some has been to focus on covering local news and lifestyle. That's what Gothamist and DNAInfo were doing successfully.

Both sites were owned by, (surprise), another RW oligarch, which is often the case for sectors across the board in our "free market" capitalist country. This guy is the Ameritrade CEO, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs and who himself has donated money to Donald Trump.

All day yesterday the sites were dark with only the CEO's letter, which drew serious outrage, as it appeared that their entire contents had been scrubbed from the internet. But just a couple of hours ago they reappeared again. Maybe the RW, vehemently anti-union owner was consulted by his public relations handlers not to go that far. I was beginning to imagine bars on the Lower East Side teeming with freshly fired young journalists fomenting revolution against the oligarchy. I hope their energy ultimately does find its way in that direction.

These are some representative Tweets about the massacre.

From the NY Times:

When the DNAinfo and Gothamist New York newsrooms first moved to join the union in April, management warned that there might be dire consequences.

DNAinfo’s chief operating officer sent the staff an email wondering if a union might be “the final straw that caused the business to close.” Around the same time, Mr. Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, wrote, “As long as it’s my money that’s paying for everything, I intend to be the one making the decisions about the direction of the business.”

In September, Mr. Ricketts, a conservative who supported President Trump in last year’s election, raised the ante with a post on his blog titled “Why I’m Against Unions At Businesses I Create,” in which he argued that “unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.”

But reporters at many digital news sites make only a fraction of what staffers made in the heyday of print newspapers. And in joining the Writers Guild of America East, which has organized staffs at some larger digital organizations, including Vice and HuffPost, the DNAinfo and Gothamist staffers hoped for stability and recognition...

After last week’s vote, one DNAinfo reporter, Katie Honan, said, “If this is the future of journalism, it should be a career for people, not a postcollege hobby.”

Comments from the NY Times piece:

Concerned Citizen Boston 11 hours ago

"This is why we need not-for-profit news sites.

Germany has lots of public broadcasting - this is what we need for every kind of journalism.

Journalistic venues should not be in the exclusive power of billionaires to create and shut down.

Mr. Ricketts is just another billionaire threat to the public good."

145 Recommend

CPD Brooklyn 10 hours ago

"Gothamist was solid and was making a ton of money. They were also very critical of Ricketts before he bought and shuttered them.

This kind of retaliation is the very reason we need strong unions. But ever since the 80s support for labor has been in steep decline in this country. Businessmen are hailed as gods by the working class, who seem to have infinite patience for money to trickle-down. Meanwhile wealth disparity grows larger, more people work themselves to death just to live, and we're all scratching our heads wondering why it's happening.

For those who say suck it up, remember: today it's Gothamist reporters, tomorrow it's your job."

207 Recommend

Vin NYC 9 hours ago

"A couple of commenters have quipped “Atlas shrugged,” in a triumphalist tone. Presumably cheering on Rickets for shuttering both websites because employees had the gall to unionize.

This is the world the Randites want: one in which workers are supplicants to capital, grateful for any crumbs they get, terrified to demand fair compensation.

Never mind that Gothamist was by all accounts a profitable enterprise - one that Rickets bought precisely because it was making money. He vindictively shut down the newly acquired business because its workers chose to join the increasing number of digital media employees who have recently chosen to unionize (and whose companies have not suffered as a result of such unionization). A truly ugly move - one indicative of the selfishness, greed and class warfare (by the rich) that have come to typify this country."

85 Recommend

John Conroy Los Angeles 12 hours ago

"That 'esprit de corps' will be there, Ricketts, if you pay your writers what they're worth and treat them with respect. Scapegoating unions is the lazy, default excuse that conservatives like Ricketts use to cover for their bad business decisions."

254 Recommend

GrandMastaGrimace LES 12 hours ago

"So a Republican Billionaire and Trump Super-pac donor ($1 Million+), Joe Rickets buys the most progressive online journalistic voice in New York (Gothamist), only to shut it down ~6 months later, because journalists unionize for a living wage. Hmmmmm... DNA Info was never profitable, but Gothamist has been profitable for a long time, and would have survived just fine outside of this malarkey.

Smells like 'journalists unionizing' is a poor excuse to blow smoke of what may have actually happened here. A Republican/Trump-funding Billionaire purchased a highly liberal/progressive/trusted voice Gothamist, only to figure out a way to *Shut It Down* months later, which they successfully did. The amount of money they paid for Gothamist is a small fee to shut down such a powerful voice.

I call Shenanigans!"

228 Recommend

Scott Heins, a photojournalist and reporter for Gothamist, said to Buzzfeed:

"We saw his repeated threats as baseless, spiteful, ideologic insults that he ended up going through with," he said, noting that the staff's desire for a union would have been a viable asset for the digital company.

"The sheer fact that there is the word union attached to his business seems to have frightened and insulted Mr. Ricketts to the point he shut down his own company. It's very telling that we didn't even get to the bargaining table to even discuss or compromise what we had envisioned."

We already know that government/private nexus of surveillance operations social media sites YouTube, Farcebook and Google have all conspired to silence and obfuscate dissent, hide content and de-monetize LW sites.

Meanwhile, "University of Chicago grad students vote to unionize." The vote was resoundingly in favor, with better than 2/3 of students signing on. Seems they're part of a trend of people wanting more collective representation.

Unionization efforts have been spreading among students at private universities since the NLRB declared last year that they are workers covered by federal labor law.

Loyola University Chicago grad students voted to unionize in February. Then in June, student library employees at the U. of C. voted in favor of a union.

The re-paving of our Main St's into cookie-cutter strips of corporate franchises and banks, supplanting small family businesses and creative commons, has seemed to come to pass barely noticed, or inertly accepted. The Economic Terrorists of Wall St have succeeded into rendering not only suburban sprawl with these eyesores of conformity, but our cities are now like these shopping malls. Our media has been equally paved over with distraction and manipulating divide and conquer partisanship.

These oligarch scumbags have a plan, as they've always had. Buy up the means of communication and twist them into conformity for their own anti-democratic ideology, or put out of business the non-compliant. Lull the punchdrunk public into consumerist passivity. Substitute journalism for social media self-aggrandizement and "news" filled with celebrity gossip and manufactured controversy.

"We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here - and you know it's right."

More of us have to want it first.

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John Brown
Economic Terrorists of Wall ST
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Submitted by Mark from Queens on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 5:34pm
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While I haven't been following news so much lately I've always appreciated these sites, especially as a New Yorker.

It's very troublesome to see this trend of what seems more and more like purposeful decimation of LW dissenting media. We've got to figure out a way to bypass the poisonous MSM and create our own ways of communicating, and to the masses.

Back to the grind here, gotta run.... I'm in between cooking, changing diapers, bathing the toddler then putting him to bed for the night.

Catch up with you guys soon. Buono notte, amici!

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by Alligator Ed on Sun, 11/05/2017 - 2:58am
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@Mark from Queens

purposeful decimation of LW dissenting media
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Submitted by The Aspie Corner on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 5:58pm
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Idiots. If they had any brains at all they'd realize they're just fodder for the capitalist machine.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Submitted by mjsmeme on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 10:33pm
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the gothamist covered bernie's rally @ washington square for about a minute before they disappeared it, which set off my wtf radar, so i emailed the writer and got a less than satisfying answer about lack of space.

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Submitted by Mark from Queens on Sat, 11/04/2017 - 7:02am
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@mjsmeme
scared shit of socialism on the main stage during the presidential race and drawing by far the biggest crowds in the country.

Good to hear you actually wrote the writer. That's how we have to proceed. At least they'll know we're watching, not passively accepting.

The Media Blackout during the primary was pretty broad though, and stunning to behold. Man, every single aspect of the political and media machinery was throroughly fortified against him - and, despite all the blatant cheating and shenanigans still managed to be neck and neck the whole way. Goes without saying: he would have annihilated #Drumpf.

Same thing for the Bernie in the Bronx rally. Should have been front page news, that he could attract such an enormous and diverse crowd that he did, and in an area that rarely sees or hosts such events. The atmosphere was completely electric. But again, don't think there was much coverage.

Which is probably a big part of why today all the $hills zombies still cling desperately to the "Bernie wouldn't have won" meme. They literally had no clue whatsoever of how big his crowds were, the sheer strength of his drawing power or the presence of his grassroots support (although they probably couldn't have willfully ignored the bumpersticker ratio that blew Her's away also).

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by SancheLlewellyn on Sat, 11/04/2017 - 9:48am

that with all the creative talent these sites had, they could reform but as a workers' cooperative, thus making them immune to buyouts by vulture capitalists. I mean, a domain name and a server can't cost that much to get them started. They own all of their former work by copyright law, correct? They ARE the alternative news sites. Ricketts and his like can go Bannon himself.

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Submitted by lotlizard on Sat, 11/04/2017 - 1:26pm
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only in a different way. It’s not a model by any means.

Its charter commits it to a role that is staatstragend (supportive of the state). Oversight boards consist of people appointed by major political parties and “significant” elements of society such as recognized churches and labor unions.

At the moment, part of their job of managing German public opinion is to shore up the E.U.’s image. At the moment this means eschewing anything like fundamental criticism of neoliberalism, globalism, or U.S. hegemony.

Reporting on U.S. affairs, they carry nothing that would deviate from the U.S. establishment narrative as we at c99 would recognize it, i.e., the world according to CNN or the New York Times.

One consequence, very much on display in recent weeks, is that German public broadcasters have to toe the E.U. line on Catalonia. Accordingly Catalonian independence is depicted as quixotic. Newsreaders stick to the Spanish central government’s official view and terminology: autonomy has been suspended, Catalonia’s government has been deposed, jailing Catalonian leaders without bail is merely upholding law and order, the movement may have Russian backing, Puigdemont is a “fugitive” who is “hiding out” in Belgium.

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Submitted by Ellen North on Sat, 11/04/2017 - 11:05pm

@lotlizard

Sickening for you, the German people and country... sickening for all of us with media pushing propaganda. I don't watch TV myself, but sometimes I hear 'news' listened to by my roommates when I go downstairs to use the bathroom or kitchen, and much of what they watch, even beyond the 'news' is such obvious violence-normalizing propaganda - with once-illegal pharma commercials that drag on like docudramas.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Wed, 11/08/2017 - 4:58pm
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"Ricketts to Reporters: Drop Dead"

The reporters among the twenty-seven full-time editorial staff in New York seemed to be a ubiquitous presence in the neighborhoods they covered—on the street, at community board meetings and city council hearings, at protests and courthouses, or just riding the crippled subway lines. They gave the illusion of missing nothing, and it was possible to believe that every event of note—from a pink swastika scrawled on a synagogue to a breakdown of the newest odors emanating from the Gowanus Canal—was being delivered to your email box throughout the day. Exhausted, amazed, you scrolled through the blizzard of headlines until alighting on one that captured your interest. What you prized was the granular knowledge of the city, the subtly knowing tone that blander, more anodyne networks like Patch lacked.

The websites provided a kind of running, live-action chronicle of how New Yorkers were behaving. A recent, not untypical, article from October 9, for instance, told of a young man who, claiming to be a graduate of NYU law school, spewed racial slurs at passengers on a crowded L train. Fed up with the guy’s outburst, passengers waited until the train pulled into the next station where, banding together, they shoved him out of the car. For good measure, a woman emptied onto his face the container of soup she had been holding. To enhance the story, the reporter posted a jerky two-and-a-half minute cellphone video of the incident, a riveting depiction of the communitarian harshness that could animate a subway car on a Saturday afternoon.

DNAinfo and Gothamist were the first to alert us of impending changes to zoning laws, of the rise and fall of rents during the latest quarter, of bar openings, restaurant closings, public school battles, water line ruptures, and the latest income and demographic statistics in a city that was radically transforming itself before our eyes....

Gothamist, in the words of a different former reporter there, lavished special attention on “bad landlords, abusive cops, and crooked politicians.” At its best, the accretion of these stories imbued readers with a heightened sense of civic intimacy and involvement. What we had at our disposal was, in effect, a kind of municipal intelligence service. Not surprisingly, sometimes the writing felt hasty; you could sense reporters rushing to get it out and move on to their next discovery, like messages tapped frenetically over a telegraph wire.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut