Online news site The Messenger shuts down after less than a year
ABC News
Ambitious online news site The Messenger has abruptly shut down after only eight months in operation
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The Messenger, an ambitious online news site that billed itself as a nonpartisan digital outlet and spent some $50 million ratcheting up its business effort, abruptly shut down Wednesday after only eight months in operation.
Founder Jimmy Finkelstein sent an email to stunned employees announcing the immediate shutdown, with some 300 journalists and other workers being let go, according to the The New York Times, which first reported the news.
Messenger reporter Jim LaPorta said he and others first learned about their dismissal from the Times and other news reports.
“I just got laid off,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding: “There is no severance. Healthcare will cease. I have to go clean out my desk from the DC office.”
In his email, Finkelstein said he hadn't shared the news with employees earlier because he had been trying desperately to raise enough funds to become profitable “literally until earlier today."
