WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The Messenger, an ambitious online news site that billed itself as a nonpartisan digital outlet and spent some $50 million ratcheting up its business effort, abruptly shut down Wednesday after only eight months in operation.

The New York Times reported that Founder Jimmy Finkelstein informed surprised employees through an email that the company will be shutting down immediately, resulting in the termination of approximately 300 employees including journalists and other staff members.

Finkelstein mentioned in his email that he hadn’t informed the employees about the news earlier due to his relentless efforts in securing enough funds to achieve profitability, which he was able to accomplish “just today.”

“We explored all possible options,” wrote Finkelstein, expressing his personal devastation.

On Wednesday evening, the Messenger website displayed solely its name and an email address.

According to Finkelstein’s email, the current economic conditions have put many media companies in a struggle for their survival.

The fall of The Messenger is a result of significant job reductions at prominent and authoritative media companies. These include the Los Angeles Times, which reduced its newsroom workforce by 20% recently, as well as Sports Illustrated and Business Insider. Other organizations, such as the New York Daily News and Forbes magazine, have also experienced protests from employees over planned job cuts.

In May, The Messenger was released and invested a significant amount of money, which some may consider excessive given the current state of the media industry, in hopes of becoming a major player in the media world.

The organization recruited skilled reporters from prominent establishments like The Associated Press, secured costly office leases in New York, Washington D.C., and Florida, and set a lofty goal of attracting 100 million monthly readers through web traffic.

At its peak, the media platform achieved only 25% of that amount. It was never profitable and depleted its funds due to a decline in advertising earnings.

Some critics claimed that Finkelstein’s business model was based on outdated tactics of using social media and search engines to gain attention.

BuzzFeed News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning online news outlet, was a previous victim. CEO Jonah Peretti announced last April that the outlet was shutting down after failing to turn a profit, saying that he’d been slow to accept that “the big platforms wouldn’t provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism purpose-built for social media.”

Source: wral.com