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Southern California Public Radio (KPCC-FM) reports [scpr.org]

After a four-month-long absence, Los Angeles news site LAist is returning to the city's local journalism scene under a new owner--public radio station KPCC [owned by Pasadena City College].

KPCC will run LAist out of its Pasadena offices, as part of a new public media partnership announced [February 23]. The deal means the station could grow its newsroom, and, it hopes, its digital footprint. Before LAist was shuttered by its previous owner last year, it was attracting nearly 800,000 monthly visitors.

Two anonymous donors bought LAist and its sister sites in the Gothamist network for an undisclosed amount, along with its sister site DNAInfo. KPCC is one of three public radio stations that will be operating the sites. WNYC will run the flagship Gothamist site out of New York, and WAMU in Washington D.C. will take over DCist.

KPCC CEO Bill Davis said in an interview that LAist would maintain its own website but he said LAist content would likely show up on the KPCC site, and vice versa.

WNYC worked with the donors and brought the other stations into the deal. The donors subsidized the sale of the sites to their respective new owners.

Davis said he would not say exactly how much the station paid as part of an agreement with the donors and other stations, but it can be deduced it was about $50,000.

[...]News analyst Ken Doctor of Newsonomics said he couldn't think of other notable instances where public media entities acquired an outside new site. But he said public media are in a healthier place to do these kind of acquisitions than other news organizations.

[...]The public media deal was recently closed with Joe Ricketts, the conservative billionaire who bought the Gothamist network of sites in 2017 to expand a newsroom portfolio that already included DNAInfo, which he founded to cover neighborhood news.

Ricketts had shut down all the Gothamist sites and DNAInfo last November, a week after the staff in New York voted to unionize. More than 100 people lost their jobs. Ricketts cited unsustainable operating costs in his decision.

[...][KPCC] hopes to expand its audience digitally by acquiring LAist, which drew 776,000 visitors in October 2017, compared to 689,000 for KPCC's site.

[...]As part of the deal, Ricketts is selling off the story archives, internet domains, and social media assets of both the Gothamist and DNAInfo properties.

Questions remain about how stories under the mantle of LAist--known for its irreverent writing and buzzy articles like "The 10 Best Places To Be Really, Really Stoned In Los Angeles"--will fit within KPCC's editorial standards.

[...]Davis said that content producers for LAist will be covered by the SAG-AFTRA, which currently represents producers and reporters at the station.

[...]The press release made no mention of the fate of the other "ist" sites--SFist [San Francisco] and Chicagoist. But Davis said that other public radio stations may decide to pick up those sites.

Previous:Gothamist's NY Writing Staff Votes to Unionize; Owner Shutters All *ist Sites [soylentnews.org]
(A lot of discussion--mostly about everything under the sun EXCEPT publications and unions.)
LA Weekly Bought; Staff Fired [soylentnews.org]

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