The Messenger, a digital media firm that launched lower than a yr in the past, has shut down following a number of stories that it was set to take action.
Information of the startup’s plans to shutter was first reported by The New York Occasions on Wednesday, citing an individual aware of the choice.
As of Wednesday evening, readers who try to go to the location for The Messenger are proven black textual content on a white background that solely options the outlet’s title and the e-mail handle information@themessenger.com.
The Hill has reached out to a consultant for the outlet.
Final spring, founder Jimmy Finkelstein, who beforehand owned The Hill, advised the Occasions and different media shops his imaginative and prescient for The Messenger was one which he described as a “Washington Put up, Every day Mail hybrid.”
Finkelstein on the time mentioned he needed to supply an choice for on-line information shoppers searching for an alternative choice to mainstream shops like CNN and the nation’s main newspapers.
“I discover that bias within the information will not be a lot what the folks report, however what they don’t report,” he mentioned. “So it’s actually a query of not fee, however omission.”
Finkelstein and president Richard Beckman, a longtime enterprise companion, promised to rent lots of of journalists and generate $100 million in income by way of promoting and occasions.
However by the tip of final yr, The Messenger had generated solely $3 million and had simply $1.8 million in money available, the Occasions reported.
After the outlet applied job cuts earlier this month, the corporate mentioned it was planning one other spherical of fundraising as Finkelstein labored to maintain the corporate working.
Journalists working for the outlet started posting on-line about being laid off Wednesday, writing that they realized of the outlet’s demise by way of information stories.
The Messenger is simply the newest in a slew of media corporations which have been pressured to make steep cost-cutting measures or to reduce growth plans as information suppliers navigate a tricky promoting market and altering client habits.
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