G/O Media Shuts Down Jezebel ⇥ theguardian.com

Adam Gabbatt, the Guardian:

Jezebel, a feminist US news site, was shut down by its owners on Thursday, with 23 people laid off and no plans for the outlet to resume publication.

G/O Media, which owns Jezebel and other sites including Gizmodo and the Onion, announced the closure in a memo to staff, which was obtained by the Guardian.

“Unfortunately, our business model and the audiences we serve across our network did not align with Jezebel’s,” Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive of G/O Media, wrote in the memo, which was sent to staff on Thursday morning.

This sucks. It follows about seven years of parent company mismanagement, first at Univision and now at Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm. The ray of hope I am clinging to is that former colleagues have found success in independence.