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☆ The Onion Is Sold by G/O Media
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Katie Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

G/O Media announced on Thursday that it had sold The Onion, a satirical news site, to a group of digital media veterans. The Onion, which started in 1988 in Wisconsin as a weekly satirical newspaper and later became a website, is known for its parodies of current events. For the last decade, it has republished the same headline after nearly every mass shooting: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”In an email to G/O Media staff that was obtained by The New York Times, Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive, said the company was “undergoing an extensive review of our portfolio with the intention of coring down to our leading sites in terms of audience and revenues.” He said G/O Media had agreed to sell to “a new Chicago-based firm called Global Tetrahedron.”“This company is made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy-based content,” Mr. Spanfeller wrote. “The site’s new owners have agreed to keep The Onion’s entire staff intact and in Chicago, something we insisted be part of the deal.”

Persons: ’, Jim Spanfeller, Mr, Spanfeller, ” Organizations: O Media, The New York Times Locations: Wisconsin, Chicago

☆ Twilio cofounder Jeff Lawson appears to have just bought The Onion
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Katherine Long | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Satirical news website The Onion was sold to a company called Global Tetrahedron. Global Tetrahedron is also the name of a fictional evil megacorporation in a long-running Onion gag. But it's a real company, and Twilio founder Jeff Lawson appears to be behind it. AdvertisementJeff Lawson, the cofounder of cloud computing company Twilio, appears to have purchased the satirical news website The Onion from G/O Media. When asked whether he had purchased The Onion, Lawson played coy.

Persons: Jeff Lawson, —, Lawson, Jim Spanfeller, Katie Robertson, Spanfeller, coy, O Organizations: Service, O, New York Times Locations: San Francisco, Chicago

☆ Deadspin’s entire staff has been laid off after the sports site was sold to a startup
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Liam Reilly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Deadspin, the irreverent sports and news site best known for its commentary and analysis, laid off all of its staff on Monday after the outlet was sold to a startup firm. A G/O Media spokesperson confirmed that 11 Deadspin staffers were impacted by the move on Monday. Last year, G/O Media also sold Jezebel to Paste Magazine after briefly shutting down the publication and laying off its entire staff. The slashing of Deadspin’s staff is the latest in what so far has been a tumultuous year for the news media. TIME also laid off 15% of its unionized editorial staff and The Los Angeles Times cut over 20% of its newsroom staff.

Persons: CNN — Deadspin, Jim Spanfeller —, —, Spanfeller, ” Spanfeller, “, Deadspin’s, ”, Condé Nast, Forbes Organizations: CNN, Publishing, Media, O Media, Magazine, Vice Media, TIME, Los Angeles Times, Condé, The New York Daily News Locations: newsrooms

☆ Jezebel acquired by Paste Magazine
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Jezebel, the punchy feminist blog that was shuttered earlier this month, will be resurrected after the publication was sold to a new owner. The digital media outlet Paste Magazine, which focuses on music and culture journalism, said Wednesday that it had acquired the outlet from G/O Media. “We are honored to bring Jezebel back to life and excited to welcome the site into the Paste Magazine family,” Josh Jackson, editor-in-chief of Paste Magazine, said in a statement. G/O Media, which previously owned the site, shut down Jezebel and laid off its entire staff earlier this month as it announced broader restructuring to grapple with a difficult economic environment. But Spanfeller said at the time that he had not “given up” on finding a new home for Jezebel, which he described as having a “storied legacy as the website that changed women’s media forever.”A representative for Paste Magazine said that the company would begin a search for a new editor-in-chief for Jezebel immediately.

Persons: ” Josh Jackson, ” Jackson, Jim Spanfeller, Spanfeller, ”, Jezebel, Paste, CNN’s Jon Passantino Organizations: CNN, Paste, O, Paste Magazine, O Media

NEW YORK (AP) — The irreverent feminist website Jezebel is making a comeback less than a month after it was shut down. Paste Magazine, a digital pop culture publication based in Atlanta, announced Wednesday that it was buying Jezebel.com from G/O Media, which closed it and laid off its staff earlier this month. Like many other digital publications, however, Jezebel struggled in recent years to find a sustainable business model as digital advertising plummeted. Paste said Jezebel's “acquisition is poised to bring together the strengths of Paste Magazine’s established presence in the media landscape with Jezebel’s influential position in addressing contemporary issues.”Paste did not immediately return an e-mail seeking further details. The New York Times reported that Paste is searching for a new editor-in-chief for Jezebel before hiring writers.

Persons: Jezebel, Paste, “, Josh Jackson, Jezebel’s, ”, ” Jackson, Jim Spanfeller, ” Spanfeller Organizations: Paste Magazine, New York Times, Paste, Gawker Media Locations: Atlanta

☆ Jezebel to Be Resurrected by Paste Magazine
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Katie Robertson | More About Katie Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jezebel, the famed feminist website, is set to return less than a month after it was shuttered. Paste Magazine, a music and culture outlet, acquired Jezebel on Tuesday and planned to start publishing on the site again as soon as Wednesday, said Josh Jackson, a co-founder and the editor in chief of Paste. “The idea of there not being a Jezebel right now just didn’t seem to make sense,” Mr. Jackson said. Jezebel, once part of the Gawker universe of websites, brought a brash new kind of internet writing to feminist issues when it was introduced in 2007, paving the way for a generation of like-minded outlets. In 2019, the private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought Jezebel as part of what is now called G/O Media, a portfolio of digital news outlets that includes Gizmodo, Deadspin and The Root.

Persons: Josh Jackson, Mr, Jackson, O, Jim Spanfeller, ” Organizations: Paste Magazine, Gawker, Great Hill Partners

☆ Jezebel, the Oral History: ‘There Was This Riotous Sense of Fun’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Kate Dwyer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Lauren Tousignant, senior editor, 2021, to interim editor in chief, 2023: Jezebel got a little neutered under G/O Media. The last few weeks were the most fun in a way, because they had stopped paying attention to us. Kylie Cheung, staff writer, 2021-2023: It’s worker-owned media like Defector and 404 — or nonprofit newsrooms like The 19th News — that gives me hope. Ashley Reese: I became a better writer because of Jezebel, especially when working with my editors, Katie McDonough and Stassa Edwards. And if we were given the resources that we needed, maybe we wouldn’t be talking about Jezebel in the past tense.

Persons: Lauren Tousignant, Jezebel, Mr, Spanfeller, “, Madeleine Davies, Kylie Cheung, ” Jia Tolentino, Ashley Reese, Katie McDonough, Stassa Edwards Organizations: O Media, The Times, Irin

☆ Jezebel shutting down per G/O Media CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Jezebel, the punchy feminist blog with an outsized influence on internet culture, will suspend operations and lay off its staff effective immediately, its parent company G/O Media said Thursday as it announced broader restructuring in its portfolio of digital news outlets. “We have been operating over the last few quarters with an eye towards efficiency and being budget conscious. The cuts come as the broader media industry continues to struggle with a weak advertising climate. And across the media landscape, cost cutting and layoffs have been rampant over the past year. “Just about every company in our space has found themselves in similar circumstances,” Spanfeller said.

Persons: Jim Spanfeller, Jez, ”, ” Spanfeller, “ Organizations: CNN, O Media

NEW YORK (AP) — Jezebel, the sharp-edged feminist website founded at the height of blogosphere era, is shutting down after 16 years, its parent company announced Thursday. G/O Media said 23 staffers would be laid off, including Jezebel's team, as part of a restructuring to cope with economic headwinds and a difficult digital advertising environment. The New York-based company also announced the departure of G/O Media editorial director Merrill Brown. In a memo to the company, G/0 Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said he made the “very, very difficult decision to suspend publication of Jezebel” after an unsuccessful search for a buyer for the website. In 2019, Jezebel became part of the G/0 Media portfolio, which also includes Gizmodo, Quartz, the Onion and the Root.

Persons: Merrill Brown, Jim Spanfeller, Jezebel ”, Spanfeller, Anna Holmes, Jezebel, Jim Spanfeller’s, Laura Bassett, ”, Lauren Tousignant Organizations: O Media, Gawker Media, WGA, Media Locations: New York

The company owns and operates several digital media outlets, including Gizmodo, Quartz and Deadspin. News of the site’s closure bookended a revolution of feminist writing on the internet that Jezebel helped kick off when it launched in 2007. A wave of sites, including DoubleX, from Slate, and Reductress, followed, many of them adopting Jezebel’s incisive focus on gender politics and racism. Anna Holmes, who founded Jezebel and left the publication in 2010, woke up to the announcement of the site shuttering on Thursday and said she was still processing the news. Ms. Holmes, 50, said that she was hired by Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, to launch the publication in 2007.

Persons: Spanfeller, “, Jezebel, Anna Holmes, ”, Holmes, Nick Denton Organizations: O Media, Slate, Gawker Media

☆ AI can't even tell you the chronological order of 'Star Wars' movies
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A recent article on the "Star Wars" films had numerous errors, The Washington Post reported. The story was one of five articles published using Google's Bard and OpenAI's ChatGPT technologies as the outlet pilots new AI initiatives, a representative of Gizmodo told Insider. These will all be designed to complement our journalism and give our editorial teams new tools to serve our audiences." Gizmodo reporters weren't the only ones angered at the flub — readers, too, expressed their dissatisfaction with the AI creation. At the same time, outlets — including Insider — have announced new initiatives to experiment with AI, with editorial procedures in place meant to prevent errors from being published.

Persons: Gizmodo, James Whitbrook, George Lucas, Whitbrook, Google's Bard, Merrill Brown, Brown, Slack, Claire Lower, LifeHacker, — Brown, Jim Spanfeller, Lea Goldman —, — Organizations: Washington Post, Intelligence, GMG Union, Gizmodo, Twitter, NPR

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