To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here. Joe Ricketts shuts down news sites after employees unionize Thursday, Nov 2, 2017 * April 13th… Amid threats from management, the recently-merged editorial staffs of Gothamist and DNAinfo have chosen to unionize with the Writers Guild of America East. The two news sites became one recently when Gothamist was acquired by billionaire conservative donor Joe Ricketts. […] In an email leaked this week, Dan Swartz, DNAinfo’s chief operating officer, made a thinly veiled threat to his staff: “Would a union be the final straw that caused the business to be closed? I don’t know.” …Adding… From Joe Ricketts’ blog on Sept. 12th… It is my observation that unions exert efforts that tend to destroy the Free Enterprise system. * October 27th… Reporters and editors at the commonly owned New York news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist are now represented by a union. The newsroom workers initially agreed to join the union, the Writers Guild of America East, in April, shortly after DNAinfo bought Gothamist. But DNAinfo’s owner, Joe Ricketts, refused to recognize the union, so the National Labor Relations Board conducted a formal vote on Thursday. The result — 25 out of 27 workers voted to join the Writers Guild — means that management is required to bargain with the union. * Today… A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City’s leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union. On Thursday, they lost their jobs, as Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, shut them down. […] A spokesperson for DNAinfo said in a statement, “The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful.” The decision puts 115 journalists out of work, both at the New York operations that unionized, and at those in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington that did not. They are getting three months of paid “administrative leave” at their full salaries, plus four weeks of severance, DNAinfo said. For now, at least, Ricketts has even taken down the archives at DNAInfo Chicago. So now, all their stories are gone. Jerk move. * Agreed…

Chicago lost big today with death of @DNAinfoCHI. What an unbelievably hard-working bunch of talented journalists. Our hearts go out to you — Scott Fornek (@sfornek) November 2, 2017

- Posted by Rich Miller

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