<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/02/the-messenger-implosion-once-again-shows-the-real-problem-with-u-s-journalism-is-shitty-management-by-visionless-fail-upward-brunchlords/>
"Early last year new journalism outlet named “The Messenger” launched to great
fanfare.
The brainchild of former
The Hill owner Jimmy Finkelstein, the outlet
launched with $50 million in backing and a lot of chatter about how it was
going to revolutionize U.S. journalism. Finkelstein claimed he wanted to build
“an alternative to a national news media” that “has come under the sway of
partisan influences,” insisting there was an easy path toward becoming one of
the biggest news outlets online with over 100 million readers monthly and $100
million in 2024 revenues.
The news outlet didn’t even last a year.
After several weeks of reports that the outlet was running out of cash, this
week
The Messenger announced it would be shutting down entirely. In an email
to staff, Finkelstein blamed “economic headwinds” on the news outlet’s
collapse:
“The industry has faced extraordinary challenges this past year. The
economic headwinds have left many media companies fighting for survival.
Unfortunately, as a new company, we encountered even more significant
challenges than others and could not survive those headwinds. I am grateful
to you and the partners who believed in our mission and came on board over
the past seven months, but the reality is that we needed more capital to
move forward successfully.“
There’s zero admission of any strategic missteps in the statement. No ownership
of mismanagement. All of the problems were apparently caused by ambiguous
externalities. Now, all that’s left of the website and a year of work is a
blank page."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
