Jezebel is back

December 11, 2023 2:17 PM

Jezebel has arisen from a fresh grave. Previously the death knell of an influential, if not universally loved, staunchly feminist, and fond of snark has a resurrection story by way of Paste Magazine.
posted by Ignorantsavage (10 comments total)

Are any of the original staff back? One of the things I’d read was that the union contract with G/O wouldn’t roll over in a sale if there were no union members left on the payroll. I’m pretty sure it was Defector or someone affiliated pointing out that the shuttering might have been a condition of paste agreeing to buy the site, so it wouldn’t have to deal with a unionized workforce.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:37 PM on December 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

I have some conflicting feelings about Jezebel as an outlet—it was a mixed bag of fantastic and toxic takes—but it was definitely a core part of my online diet at one point and it's been gutting to see so many women-focused outlets get bought, run into the ground with cheap & bad management pushing bad editorial and status quo positions, and then shuttering.
posted by smirkette at 2:39 PM on December 11, 2023 [11 favorites]

Lauren Tousignant, Kylie Cheung, and Susan Rinkunas were working on the previous incarnation but they may have already been working for Paste after the shutdown so I do not know if the union contract followed them. The details of the deal have not been made public according to an article in Variety.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 2:47 PM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

From that Variety article:

In addition, under the deal with G/O Media, Paste acquired politics site Splinter — which had been shut down in 2019 — and plans to relaunch it next year ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Let's hope Paste has improved practices for paying its writers since 2018, when multiple freelancers talked with HuffPo about waiting nearly a year (!) for payments., and only getting their checks (most of them, anyway) after threatening legal action. Lots of horror stories in that article, including accusations that women writers were particularly abused by the payment non-system. FWIW, Joshua Jackson was editor-in-chief then and remains so now.
posted by mediareport at 3:08 PM on December 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm always skeptical of a closure and resurrection story, because it's often more about reducing worker costs and avoiding industrial relations obligations. A different but potentially similar example from TV-land.
posted by tinlids at 3:09 PM on December 11, 2023 [8 favorites]

Fingers crossed that Mr. Jackson and Paste have removed their collective heads from their rectums and are seeking to run a business that meets its obligations to its writers.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 3:34 PM on December 11, 2023

I've always felt that Jezebel got extra criticism for being a women's site, and I'm happy to see them rise from the dead. Making them zombies.
posted by theora55 at 4:15 PM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]

Are any of the original staff back?

Laura Bassett's Twitter bio still says ex-EIC of Jezebel. She left back in August due to Spanfeller and G/O Media's treatment of the staff.
posted by axiom at 6:00 PM on December 11, 2023

Mod note: Fighty comment and responses removed. Please remember the Guidelines and be considerate and respectful, sensitive to context, and avoid microaggressions, thanks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:13 AM on December 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yesterday's letter from Lauren Tousignant says:

My goal as the site’s new Editor-in-Chief is simple: Keep Jezebel as weird, hilarious, and rightfully outraged as ever. (Unfortunately, now that I have a job again, I have about $2,000 of unused coding classes I don’t know what to do with.) Expect to see a lot of familiar names and the same standard-setting content as we work to expand Jezebel’s readership and reach, and bring in as many new and disruptive voices as the cosmos will allow.

posted by Lyn Never at 12:45 PM on December 12, 2023 [3 favorites]