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Deadspin reports

Scummy Fuck Joe Ricketts Shuts Down DNAinfo [and] Gothamist After Writers Unionize [deadspin.com]

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 comments about Ricketts's explanation for his action which can be boiled down to "reads like horseshit".

The Los Angeles Daily News reports [dailynews.com]

Angelenos hoping to read the latest local reporting from LAist.com [on November 2] were instead greeted by a letter [dnainfo.com] 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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