Gothamist

''Gothamist'' is a New York City–centric blog operated by New York Public Radio. From 2003 to 2018, Gothamist LLC was the operator, or in some cases franchisor, of eight city-centric websites that focused on news, events, food, culture, and other local coverage. It was founded in 2003 by Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung. In March 2017, Joe Ricketts, owner of '' DNAinfo'', acquired the company and, in November 2017, the websites were temporarily shut down after the newsroom staff voted to unionize. In February 2018, it was announced that New York Public Radio, KPCC and WAMU had acquired ''Gothamist'', ''LAist'', and ''DCist'', respectively. ''Chicagoist'' was purchased by Chicago-born rapper Chance the Rapper in July 2018.

History

Early history and other blogs

The namesake blog, ''Gothamist'', focused on New York City, was founded in 2003, by publisher Jake Dobkin and editor Jen Chung. other blogs operated by the company include ''LAist'' for Los Angeles, ''DCist'' for Washington, D.C., ''Chicagoist'', and ''SFist'' for San Francisco in the United States, as well as ''Shanghaiist'' internationally.

Canadian blog ''Torontoist'' was launched by the American company, but was transferred to the locally-owned Ink Truck Media in April 2009, while retaining its "-ist" name and remaining affiliated with the ''Gothamist'' network. In March 2011, ''Torontoist'' was acquired from Ink Truck Media by St. Joseph Media, magazine publishing division of Canadian media giant St. Joseph Communications. As a result the site was not affected by the ''Gothamist'' shutdown in 2017, and remained in operation until it was acquired by '' Daily Hive'' in 2019.

In a similar fashion, in 2010 Londonist was transferred to the London-based startup LDN Creative.

An estimate by Income.com in 2015 quoted the monthly revenue from ''Gothamist'' at $110,000.

Shutdown

In 2017, ''Gothamist'' and all related blogs were sold to Joe Ricketts, owner of '' DNAinfo''. After the acquisition, ''Gothamist'' expunged from its archives a number of stories that had covered Ricketts critically. Regarding the removal of Ricketts related content from the site, Dobkin told '' Jezebel'', "Just as Bloomberg doesn't cover Bloomberg, we don’t plan to cover Joe Ricketts and so we decided to take down our coverage of him. No one asked us to do it. It was a decision made solely by Jen hungand me."

On November 2, 2017, Ricketts posted to both ''DNAinfo'' and the "-ist" network sites that both websites would immediately cease operations, a week after ''Gothamist'' writers voted to unionize with the Writers Guild of America, East. All content from all ''DNAinfo'' sites and all subsidiary sites were taken down. The next day, archives of the sites were returned to functionality. Ricketts's shutdown was criticized as being a mere act of retaliation after the two companies' workers had joined a union. In the aftermath of the shutdown, laid-off reporters for ''Gothamist'' stated that former owners Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung actively cooperated with Ricketts to discourage the union efforts, "It was textbook union-busting stuff."

Relaunch

On February 23, 2018, public radio stations WNYC, KPCC, and WAMU announced that they had jointly acquired ''Gothamist'' and its related sites ''LAist'' and ''DCist''. Under the agreement, ''Gothamist'' and its sister sites would begin publishing news content again. Additionally, WNYC acquired the archives of ''Chicagoist'' and ''SFist'', and Chicago's WBEZ stated that they were exploring an acquisition of the former. WAMU relaunched ''DCist'' on June 11, 2018. ''Gothamist'' confirmed that Chance the Rapper acquired ''Chicagoist'' after he announced it in a new song, "I Might Need Security", on July 18, 2018.

On January 7, 2019, labor union SAG-AFTRA and WNYC announced that they had reached an agreement to recognize more than 25 digital employees of New York Public Radio, including ''Gothamist'' staff.

Impress3 Media bought the San Francisco blog site ''SFist'' in January 2019 and relaunched it the following month with the former editor-in-chief as a consultant.

In April 2021, WNYC laid off 14 employees, amounting to 4% of total staff. This included several workers at the ''Gothamist'' including its editor-in-chief.

Awards

The flagship ''Gothamist'' blog has received a number of awards and commendations, including six Bloggies nominations. It was named a "Forbes Favorite", and a '' BusinessWeek'' "Best of the Web". In 2007, ''Gothamist'' was named blog of the year by '' Wired'' magazine and given a Wired Rave Award.

References

External links

*{{official website

American blogs
Internet properties established in 2003
Internet properties disestablished in 2017
Internet properties established in 2018
Kickstarter-funded publications