Neighborhood News Site Bklyner To Shut Down, Publisher Says

BROOKLYN, NY — Popular Brooklyn news site Bklyner will soon close up shop for the indefinite future, its publisher announced this week.

The independent news site, which was established in its current form in 2016, announced Thursday that its last day of publishing will be Sept. 10, with no immediate plans of if and when it will return.

"Frankly, I am burned out, and the vacation I sort of managed to take a few weeks back just showed me how badly I need time off after 10 years," Editor and Publisher Liena Zagare wrote on the site. "...Since I never figured out how to get paid regularly for the many hats I still wear...I cannot hire someone to fill in while I take the time off that I need to make sure that I, too, can be sustainable, and be the kind of person my incredible, ever-supportive husband and kids, as well as Bklyner’s exacting readers and staff, need and deserve."

Zagare — who noted she handles assigning, fact-checking, editing, reporting, writing, copy-editing, publishing, social media, tech, subscriptions, ad sales/reporting, payroll, and contracts for the site— pointed to the "particularly brutal" last two years in local news given both the financial and emotional strain of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Covering and trying to make sense of deaths, uncertainty, worry, pain, anger, all exacerbated by COVID, day in and day out, is traumatizing," she wrote. "If on top of that, one has a number of kids at different NYC public Zoom schools, elderly parents in a foreign country, and a few pets to take care of … well, we, reporters and editors, are also only human."

Bklyner reaches more than 35,000 newsletter subscribers and brings news to almost half a million Brooklynites (including this one) each month, according to the Zagare. It also launched an eight-page print version of its stories in 2018.

The paid subscriptions at Bklyner will be paused during the stop in publishing. Zagare asked that those who wish to receive a refund on the annual paid subscription instead send her an email at Liena@bklyner.com.

"What I hope has made us stand out is our heart, and that we make no secret of how much we care — to make a difference, to have an impact through our work," she wrote.

"...The archives will remain online, and who knows — a day may come when I will open my laptop and send the 35,000+ of you a newsletter that Bklyner is back again. I certainly hope so."

Read Zagare's full farewell here.