"Mashable announces personnel shifts and job cuts" by Ravi Somaiya and John Herrman New York Times April 08, 2016
The news website Mashable announced sweeping changes to its operations Thursday, replacing its executive editor, Jim Roberts, and its chief revenue officer, Seth Rogin, and making a round of job cuts.
In a memo to the staff, Mashable founder Pete Cashmore described a decision to “move away from covering world news and politics as stand-alone channels.” It will spend more time “focusing on our core coverage — technology, Web culture, science, social media, entertainment, business and lifestyle, all told through the digital lens. We’ll also develop our real-time news coverage, keeping our audience up to date on breaking news and cultural trends being discussed on social networks.”
The company did not comment on the specifics of the cuts, but two people with knowledge of the shift, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the job losses would be to areas Cashmore described as declining in significance, world news and politics.
Roberts, a former senior editor at The New York Times, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. He will be replaced by Greg Gittrich, formerly the chief content officer at Vocativ. Rogin will be replaced by Ed Wise, who had worked at the humor website and studio Funny or Die.
Mashable workers had come to work on Thursday expecting to hear about their company’s plans for the future. The news and entertainment site had just raised $15 million. But the memo came before a meeting: “Today we must part ways with some of our colleagues,” Cashmore wrote. By early afternoon, as many as a dozen editorial employees had been terminated.
Should have quit first.
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