The Onion Is the Latest Publication to Be Sold by G/O Media ⇥ nytimes.com

Mark Stenberg, reporting for Adweek in January:

Digital media company G/O Media is shopping around its portfolio of editorial assets in hopes of securing buyers for individual titles, part of a broader effort to divest the properties ahead of another challenging year for the media industry, according to four people familiar with the efforts.

[…]

“Your reporting is largely incorrect. As with many multi-title media properties, we are always entertaining opportunities,” said a representative for G/O Media. “We have sold sites and purchased sites. Having said that, we do not comment on transaction rumors and speculation.”

It was “largely incorrect”, according to G/O Media, to suggest the company was thinking about selling off its portfolio of sites just two months after selling two of its sites to Paste. CEO Jim Spanfeller even gave an “exclusive” interview to Sara Fischer, of Axios, to dispel the rumours. Weeks later, the company sold and purged the shell of Deadspin, and then it sold the A/V Club and the Takeout.

Katie Robertson, New York Times:

G/O Media announced on Thursday that it had sold The Onion, a satirical news site, to a group of digital media veterans.

[…]

The real-life Global Tetrahedron is owned by Jeff Lawson, a co-founder and former chief executive of the technology communications company Twilio. The chief executive is Ben Collins, who was a senior reporter at NBC News until recently.

G/O Media still owns six publications — for now. For its part, the Onion says you should feed it one dollar.