WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Messenger, an ambitious online news site that billed itself as a nonpartisan digital outlet and spent about $50 million ramping up its business efforts, abruptly closed Wednesday after just eight months in operation.
Founder Jimmy Finkelstein sent an email to stunned employees announcing the immediate closure, laying off about 300 journalists and other employees, according to The New York Times, which first reported the news.
In his email, Finkelstein said he had not shared the news with his employees sooner because he had been desperately trying to raise enough money to become profitable “literally until earlier today.”
“We have exhausted all available options,” wrote Finkelstein, who said he was “personally devastated.”
The Messenger website carried only the name and an email address on Wednesday evening.
Finkelstein noted in his email that “economic headwinds have left many media companies fighting for survival.”
The collapse of The Messenger follows large-scale layoffs by once powerful and influential media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, which last week cut its editorial staff by 20%, as well as Sports Illustrated and Business Insider. Planned budget cuts have also led to worker strikes at other locations, including the New York Daily News and Forbes magazine.
The Messenger launched last May and has spent a lot of money – some would say excessively, given the current media climate – in the hopes of becoming a media heavyweight.
The company hired experienced journalists from major organizations including The Associated Press, signed multimillion-dollar office leases in New York, Washington D.C., and Florida, and ambitiously sought to attract enough web traffic to build a monthly audience of 100 million readers. reaches.
At best, the outlet achieved only a quarter of that figure. It never turned a profit and ran out of money while advertising revenue fell.
Critics said Finkelstein relied on an outdated business model that relied on social media distribution and searches to attract attention.
BuzzFeed News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning online news channel, was a previous victim. CEO Jonah Peretti announced last April that the outlet would close after failing to turn a profit, saying he was slow to accept that “the major platforms would not provide the distribution or financial backing needed to deliver premium , to support free journalistic purposes.” -built for social media.”