Publisher Shuts Down DNA Info And Gothamist

BROOKLYN – We at BKLYNER are sincerely saddened to learn of the loss of two great competitors and sources of local news—DNA Info and Gothamist.

Joe Ricketts, Chief Executive Officer of the two sites, posted a statement earlier today reading:

“Today, I’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue publishing DNAinfo and Gothamist. Reaching this decision wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t one I made lightly.”

Ricketts launched DNA Info in 2009, “at a time when few people were investing in media companies,” he writes. DNA Info merged with Gothamist in March 2017 and the two sites have delivered news stories and information to more than half a million subscribers and two million followers on social media daily. The sites received over 15 million visits monthly, he notes.

“But DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure. And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasn’t been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded,” Ricketts wrote, before thanking his readers and staff for “their tireless effort and dedication.”