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posted by martyb on Monday November 06 2017, @11:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the Retaliation?-or-Post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc? dept.

DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionize

A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City's leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union.

On Thursday, they lost their jobs, as Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, shut them down.

At 5 p.m., a post went up on the sites from Mr. Ricketts announcing the decision. He praised them for reporting "tens of thousands of stories that have informed, impacted and inspired millions of people." But he added, "DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure."

[...] in the financially daunting era of digital journalism, there has been no tougher nut to crack than making local news profitable, a lesson Mr. Ricketts, who lost money every month of DNAinfo's existence, is just the latest to learn. In New York City, the nation's biggest media market, established organizations such as The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal and The Daily News have slashed staff or withdrawn from street-level reporting. The Voice stopped publishing its print edition in September.

What about The Daily Planet and Gotham Globe?

Gothamist's NY Writing Staff Votes to Unionize; Owner Shutters All *ist Sites

Deadspin reports:

Joe Ricketts, TD Ameritrade founder, billionaire, and father of Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, shut down the local news network of DNAinfo and Gothamist sites today, a week after the writers voted to unionize.

[...] With the sites' articles functionally locked, the reported 115 newly jobless writers now have no clips [to which they can refer potential employers] as they search for work.

Deadspin has scathing comments about Ricketts's explanation for his action.

The Los Angeles Daily News reports:

Angelenos hoping to read the latest local reporting from LAist.com [on November 2] were instead greeted by a letter from the news site's CEO, announcing he had shuttered the parent media company and all of its local news sites.

[...] [Ricketts bought news company DNAinfo in 2010 and, in March 2017, DNAinfo] purchased Gothamist, which ran news sites in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.

[...] Julia Wick, editor-in-chief at LAist, [...] said she and her Los Angeles team supported the New York staff's decision to unionize. Originally, she said, all five Gothamist sites planned to join the union, but the Chicago newsroom dropped out, ending the collective effort.


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:38AM (5 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:38AM (#593447) Journal

    Again! Now jmorris is triggered, too! Will no one think of the conservatives! WHY IS THERE NO TRIGGER WARNING ON THIS ARTICLE? I fear we are opening up SoylentNews to possible lawsuits for damages to libertarians and conservatives who inflict grevious bodily damage to themselves and others by means of sheer volume of spittle! I mean, just look at jmorris, the poor thing. Yes, of course, he is a scab, or would be if he could actually work, but I had no idea he could type this many words as one sitting. I hope he is OK. So again, please preface controversial articles about things like workers rights, labor laws, social justice, mom and apple pie, with an appropriate TRIGGER WARNING so that guilty parties like jmorris are not made to suffer needlessly.

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  • (Score: 1, Redundant) by jmorris on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:50AM (4 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:50AM (#593452)

    And that was about as useless a contribution as one might imagine. Maybe that is why you love the idea so much; From each according to their ability would leave you a lot of free time. :)

    • (Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:12AM (2 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:12AM (#593489) Journal

      Oh! Good one, jmo! But it does not change the fact that unions are a force for good and justice. Hell, I have belonged to lots of them, since before the name even existed. And your contribution is the useless one. Theft? Ohrly? Prodhoun said, famously, "property is theft", and it is precisely theft from the workers, the ones who actually create new value. So this particular vampiric capitalist bastard has shut down the whole shebang, thus stealing a living from the writers involved. Current Capitalist laws may say he has every right to do so, but you know, you do that to enough people, and sooner or later, you just run out of workers because you have shut down all your businesses. That is the end you face, jmorris, if you actually had any capital, and were not the worst sort of lumpenproletariat fascist sympathizing scum. What have you contributed to humanity, jmorris? What will you be remembered for, generations hence? It is a real question.

      • (Score: 1, Redundant) by jmorris on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:42AM (1 child)

        by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:42AM (#593506)

        Hell, I have belonged to lots of them, since before the name even existed.

        Uh huh, and you walked to school uphill both ways. You did know labor unions are a 19th Century invention, right?

        Prodhoun [blah blah property is theft bullshit blah blah]

        I think we are getting close to your problem, following philosophers from the busted fork. In America we follow the good fork off the Enlightenment, the French / Marxist side of the fork was a big mistake that killed people by the hundreds of millions. To put it in a tech analogy you are a diehard still following XFree86, dreaming of a big comeback. while the cool people are at X.org making new stuff. I'm looking at em building Wayland and Vulkan and praying they know what they are doing.

        it is precisely theft from the workers, the ones who actually create new value

        Yup, right out of Capital. You do know his Labor Theory of Value is, in precise scientific terms, "shit", right? And without that nothing else in that damned book makes any sense at all. Still amazed how many people fell for that horse crap hard enough to kill in its name. If the workers create so much damned value, why are they so utterly unable to do it without the capital supplied by the Capitalists? No, they are selling a commodity in the market just like everybody else participating in the free market, they are not special or privileged as the only entity creating "surplus value" to be "appropriated" and if you actually understood the damned book you would realize pretty much everything in it is redefined from the normal meaning of words to be based on that one core fallacy.

        Without property rights there isn't much of a civilization possible. Even the commies quickly figured that out, they just figured The Party should own everything and the members should all have estates and live like feudal lords while the masses slaved away in a condition any serf would have recognized.

        • (Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:00AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:00AM (#593539) Journal

          Oh, no, jmorris, you ought not have done this!

          You exquisitely ignorant, full of yourself, complete ignoramous! I will bring thousands of years of philosophical insight down upon your head, you idiot! Did it not occur to you that this would not be a good idea?

          In America we follow the good fork off the Enlightenment, the French / Marxist side of the fork was a big mistake that killed people by the hundreds of millions. To put it in a tech analogy you are a diehard still following XFree86, dreaming of a big comeback.

          Quaint, it that is a word that can be applied to persons with absolutely no historical perspective. Enlightenment, what would a cretin like yourself know about such things! You are probably an adherent of the "Dark Enlightenment" [wikipedia.org] of the Bannons and Thiels, who think that knowledge is a bad thing, for the masses. But you do understand the continuum from the American Revolution, with such radical things as a declaration of the inherent equality of all persons, and its "bill of rights" [wikipedia.org], through to the "Rights of Man and the Citizen" [wikipedia.org] to the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" [un.org]? Or perhaps, you do not, you reactionary scum. But
          do try to keep up.

          You leap directly to Marx. But it is better to consider the history of Economic ideas, especially the ideas of Ricardo and Say. [newworldencyclopedia.org] Now I know from your posting here, that economics is not your strong suite, but just try to follow along. Value is not a real thing. Thus, it must be established on something else, something real. That really leaves only two things it could be based on: exchange value, and the cost of production (or, opportunity cost, but that will take you over your head, my dear jmorris.).

          Yup, right out of Capital. You do know his Labor Theory of Value is, in precise scientific terms, "shit", right?

          No, I do not know that. Do you? [wikipedia.org] The value of anything, really is equivalent to the amount of human labor it takes to produce that thing? Now, you may be thinking, if you do think, "this cannot be right, because oil is worth something just in itself!" Ah, commodity fetishism! Such a difficult disease to cure! But stick with me, jmorris, your cure is on the horizon. Use value is a thing, but the use value is determined by the labor cost of obtaining the use-value. So oil is worth something, but the more expensive it is to obtain (the higher the labor costs), the less valuable the oil itself is, and with competition, the cost of oil reduces to the costs of the labor (including labor sunk into tech, tools and expertise). Science, or just fact? Decide for yourself.

          The rest of your "triggered rant" does not need much refutation. But you do go on to say:

          Without property rights there isn't much of a civilization possible.

          '
          Here you are sinking to khallow levels if ignorance! Property rights? Do you think these are one thing across history? Au contraire, my petit morris! Let me familiarize you with the Roman concept of Paterfamilias. Under Roman law, the father "owned" the family. I guess that means that if they tried to for a "union" (what we call a 'family'), they could all be sold into slavery. Brutal discipline, those Romans. So who owns you, my little gladitorial jmorris? Moving on.

          So the Feudal period. No more slaves. Did you ever wonder why? And the Lord was the lord of the realm. Except that he did not "own" the property he "ruled" over. He was traditionally entitled to a tithe, or 10% of the produce of the land. But the Peasants held tenure. Not so much that they owned the land, as that the land owned them. Now, the Brits, of course, screwed all this up, and so became capitalists.

          The point is, my dear and fluffy-headed jmorris, is that the concept of "property" is far from an eternal principle, and the rights and duties (see that?) attendant upon property have shifted, depending, as Marx has correctly pointed out, on the mode and relations of production. Now clearly you are not intelligent enough to understand such theory. But just let me say, that when an "owner" shuts down a going concern, for no more reason that to assert his "ownership" of said business, it is not different than a feudal lord massacring his peasants because they did not agree to his arbitrary and illegal and unholy increase in the tithe. And with no serfs, no grain, since knights cannot plow nor reap. And with no grain, no tithe. And so the Capitalist has cut his own throat.

          So clearly you see, my not too bright but ideologically infuriated jmorris, that communism is inevitable, not because of some theft or violence, or violent imposition that no one saw coming, but simply because it is the one form of production that all parties can agree to. So unions are only a step, a socialist step, and necessary step nonetheless. And the reactionary behavior of billionaires like this one is inevitable, but it will not last. The greatest thing about Marxist theory, jmorris, is its inevitability, and the way in which late capitalists are actually going to bring that inevitability about. Some one mentioned, Kill the Mouse?

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @02:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @02:33AM (#594364)

      Strangely, though, he gets moderated up for those inane posts. He trolls, and people mod him up. Go figure . . .