Advertisement
Supported by
The trailblazing feminist is being sold to Paste through G/O Media, which shut down the site this month.
By Katie Robertson
Jezebel, the well-known feminist site, is expected to return less than a month after its closure.
Paste Magazine, a music and cultural media outlet, acquired Jezebel on Tuesday and plans to begin publishing the back cover on Wednesday, said Josh Jackson, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Paste.
“The concept that Jezebel doesn’t exist right now just didn’t make sense,” Jackson said.
Jezebel, once part of Gawker’s universe of websites, brought a new kind of web writing on feminist issues when it appeared in 2007, paving the way for a generation of like-minded media. In 2019, personal justice firm Great Hill Partners purchased Jezebel as a component of what is now called G/O Media, a virtual media portfolio that includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, and The Root.
But on Nov. 9, G/O Media’s chief executive, Jim Spanfeller, said that Jezebel would shut down and that 23 people would be laid off because of “economic headwinds.”
“Unfortunately, our style of business and the audiences we serve through our network align with Jezebel’s,” he wrote in the memo to staff.
The closure of the online page resulted in obituaries exposing Jezebel’s impact on the web and culture. Many of Jezebel’s original authors and editors have had good luck in the mainstream media, and the publication’s sharp and cheeky writing has influenced many feminist blogs. .
Spanfeller added in his memo that G/O Media had spoken with more than two dozen potential buyers of Jezebel but had been unable to reach an agreement. Jackson said he didn’t buy the site until he learned it was closing. From the deal, Paste also bought Splinter, the political news site that G/O Media shut down in 2019.
Jackson declined to comment on how much his company paid for the two sites, although he said it was an all-cash transaction. The Daily Beast had previously reported that a handful of buyers were interested in resurrecting the website.
“We have been working on the sale of Jezebel for months and are thrilled that it has a new home,” Spanfeller said in a statement.
Mr. Jackson said neither Jezebel nor Splinter had any employees, so he was aiming to first find an editor in chief for Jezebel and then hire writers.
“I talked to some of the former citizens of Jezebel,” he said.
Jackson and two friends started Paste in Atlanta in 1998. It operated as a print music magazine from 2002 until 2010, when it went digital-only. Paste was acquired in 2011 through the music store Wolfgang’s Vault, now known as Wolfgang’s. One hundred percent funded through advertising.
“We’ve gone through all the adjustments in the media landscape and we’ve remained independent. We survived and thought, ‘Hey, we can do this with other sites too,'” he said.
Mr. Jackson expressed his hope that Jezebel would “bring all the most productive things of all time” to the website. He referenced her original catchphrase (“Sex. Celebrity. Politics. With teeth. “) and said one of the first things she seeks to bring back “with teeth. “
“I need them to push the boundaries,” Jackson said. I think there are advertisers who have the courage to go where it is. “
“I see him as the ideal resource for millennial women who grew up with him, and it’s something that taught them what they can be,” she added. “And I need the same for Gen Z, and bring in the voices of Gen Z. “
As for Splinter, Mr. Jackson said he planned to relaunch that website in 2024, and “to have it ready for a very important political year.”
Splinter debuted in 2017 as the new look and feel of the Fusion news site. In April 2019, Univision’s Fusion Media Group sold the online page to G/O Media, which shut down the site six months later, telling staff members at the time that “Establishing a strong and sustainable audience for a young site has proven to be a challenge in today’s environment. “Extremely competitive sector. “
The fired Splinter members later introduced the worker-owned online page Discourse Blog, describing it as “a left-wing political and cultural site. ” The Splinter site has been down since November 2019.
The sale of Jezebel is not G/O Media’s first transaction. It sold Lifehacker to Ziff Davis in March and in April acquired advertising site Quartz.
Katie Robertson covers the media for The Times. Email: katie. robertson@nytimes. com Learn more about Katie Robertson
Advertisement