OAN’s James Meyers
12:19 PM – Thursday, February 1, 2024
Centrist digital news startup The Messenger has announced that they are officially shutting down after less than a year of operation.
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The startup company deleted all content and articles on their website on Wednesday evening, which was hours after the company told the New York Post “The site will go dark.”
The Messenger CEO and founder Jimmy Finklestein was reportedly “close” to raising the necessary funds to keep the business afloat for several more months, however, the deal ultimately fell through.
“The Messenger was founded to champion balanced journalism in an era of bias, subjectivity and misinformation, with a mandate to deliver the news — not shape it — and a clear vision of earning our readers’ trust and rekindling their passion for media,” according to its About page. It was founded in 2023 by co-founder Jimmy Finklestein,” according to allsides.com, a media bias rating site.
The company was reportedly losing millions each month, while bringing in only around $3 million last year, according to financial documents.
Meanwhile, the company claimed that their projections showed how they would “bring in $100 million in revenue for 2024,” a figure that experts doubted from the start.
The CEO had paid top dollar to lure away writing and marketing talent from other top publications, such as the conservative outlet New York Post and liberal outlet NBC News.
Additionally, the company was paying the site’s editor, Dan Wakeford, a whopping $900,000 annually, according to multiple sources.
“What ultimately killed The Messenger was lack of message — and arrogance,” an industry source said. “Hundreds of people left great jobs with the promise of creating something better — which turned out to be a big lie.”
Finklestein claimed that he did not send out a mass email to let employees know earlier since he was too busy trying to raise funds to keep the company in business.
In January, a financier who backed Tucker Carlson’s new content had reportedly offered $30 million for a 51% stake in the news site, evaluating it at $60 million.
“We exhausted every option available,” Finkelstein wrote, saying he was “personally devastated.”
Finkelstein noted in his email that “economic headwinds have left many media companies fighting for survival.”
The Messenger now joins the ranks of other high profile outlets that have gone under, including the Los Angeles Times, Business Insider and Sports Illustrated.
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