Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters out of a job

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by awillen on Friday December 13, 2019 @07:56PM (#21787048)

"But the site started to show signs of struggle earlier this year when the Atlantic laid off CityLab’s dedicated business staff. “The writing’s been on the wall for a long time,” one of the staffers said about CityLab’s future with the Atlantic. Another staffer said that during the meeting Atlantic management had announcing its sale to Bloomberg Media, the management made it clear “that the company is really focusing on the Atlantic and that they just feel that they can’t focus and invest in CityLab to make it robust.”"

That's in the second to last paragraph in the article, which really makes this feel unfairly biased. If those jobs were doomed anyway, it's plausible that Bloomberg's saving several jobs that would be lost, instead of causing the loss of jobs as this title implies.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by notatoad on Friday December 13, 2019 @09:54PM (#21787486)

According to this tweet, the entire staff was laid off by the Atlantic before the deal. So saving half the jobs is exactly the situation.

https://twitter.com/kristoncapps/status/1205602897733521410?...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by CydeWeys on Friday December 13, 2019 @11:19PM (#21787781)

That's too bad. I really like Citylab, and having half the employees is still better than none, but is overall far from good.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by mc32 on Friday December 13, 2019 @10:24PM (#21787603)

I think one issue I had as an occasional reader is that they were too invested in one perspective only.

Surely we need to study and be curious for things which can improve city life. There is a lot of good in that.

The one peeve I had is that "city-first PoV" made them a bit myopic and only wanted to see things though the lens of city life to the neglect of alternatives.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by CydeWeys on Friday December 13, 2019 @11:20PM (#21787786)

That's the topic they focus on though, and they do it well. It's CityLab, not CountryLife.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by mc32 on Saturday December 14, 2019 @08:21AM (#21789376)

I agree with that and don’t have a problem with that but their attitude is “we’re right and they’re wrong and we'll make them”. CountryLife I would say wouldn’t be as ideological about how people should live their lives.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by CydeWeys on Saturday December 14, 2019 @10:49AM (#21790059)

You've got some rose-colored glasses on if you don't think people out in the country are ideological about how people should live their lives.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by Consultant32452 on Friday December 13, 2019 @11:38PM (#21787854)

Not just city first, but young healthy people of a particular sociotype first. If everyone is just super healthy and rides bikes or scooters in the rain or 100 degree heat then we'll have amazing car free roads!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by malandrew on Friday December 13, 2019 @08:44PM (#21787230)

Unfortunately, in 2019, no big corporation is allowed to be seen as the good guys no matter how noble their deeds are.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by rapind on Friday December 13, 2019 @11:43PM (#21787867)

It's far saner to assume that all for-profit companies are in it to make money first and foremost, or will be eventually when they start to fail or have less scrupulous competition. From this starting point, and if you care to, you can then evaluate a company to get an informed opinion of whether or not they're doing "noble deeds", aligning with your interests, what you believe are societies interests, etc.

Assume your neighbours are noble by all means, but assuming all or even most large corporations are will lead to inevitable disappointment (or lessons learned).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by awillen on Friday December 13, 2019 @08:48PM (#21787249)

I see a lot of the same with PE firms buying companies - "<PE firm> buys <beloved company that was failing> and lays off half the workers! Evil, evil PE firm!" Now obviously there's a fair amount of the time when PE firms do dividend recaps and other financial engineering that harm the companies, but there's plenty of time when they trim the fat from a failing company and save a lot of jobs. That doesn't make for a nice clickbaity headline, though.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by WalterBright on Saturday December 14, 2019 @05:19AM (#21788758)

One thing about the free market is it is constantly reallocating resources from lower performing uses to higher performing ones.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bloomberg just bought CityLab and put half its reporters ... by milkytron on Saturday December 14, 2019 @06:25AM (#21788958)

That's assuming the free market is actually free.

Some lower performing resources are at an inherent disadvantage, created by the higher performing ones.

[ Parent | on HN ]