Former DNAinfo, Gothamist Staffers Rally After Owner Shuts Sites

CITY HALL PARK, NY — Hundreds of local journalists, elected officials and union organizers rallied Monday to condemn billionaire Joe Ricketts' decision to shut down local news networks DNAinfo and Gothamist.

The protest outside City Hall was organized after the abrupt closure of the two websites in New York City, along with the shuttering of sister sites in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Ricketts, who launched DNAinfo in 2009 and purchased the Gothamist network in March, shuttered the news sites with no notice just a week after his editorial employees in New York City voted to unionize. His announcement on Thursday came as a shock to readers and reporters alike.

Ben Fractenberg, a longtime reporter with DNAinfo, called Ricketts' action a direct response to the newsroom's decision to unionize.

"It was a disgusting act and it was an act if retaliation," Fractenberg said on Monday. "It's within our power to create local journalism and support it."

Numerous local officials and community leaders commended the reporters for their work covering community news in New York City.

Council member Donovan Richards personally thanked DNAinfo reporter Katie Honan, who he said "covered Queens like no other reporter."

Honan, who worked for DNAinfo for nearly five years, has dedicated much of her reporting to covering recovery efforts in the Rockaways in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, he said.

"As a representative of the Rockaways I can clearly say, today, that if it was not for her journalism that the Rockaways ... would be recovering at a slower pace than we are," Richards said on Monday.

Former staffers at the rally said they were in the middle of reporting and filing stories when they found their home pages replaced with a letter from Ricketts announcing the death of the local news organizations and blaming it on "the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded."

The newsroom's union is considering several options moving forward, including a legal case to challenge Ricketts' decision, said Lowell Peterson, the executive director of the Writers Guild of America, East, which represents DNAinfo and Gothamist workers.

Image credit: Ciara McCarthy / Patch. Image caption: Staffers with DNAinfo and Gothamist set up before a press conference on Monday.