From The New York Post, February 1:
In the final days of doomed news website the Messenger, insiders painted a chaotic scene of checked-out bosses and furious staffers — some of whom had already “tapped out” because they had no faith in CEO Jimmy Finkelstein.
The accounts from several of the roughly 300 journalists who were fired when the startup went belly-up Wednesday tell of the growing disconnect between highly paid editor-in-chief Dan Wakeford and the beleaguered staff, according to insiders who spoke to The Post on Thursday.
With news swirling that Finkelstein was scrambling to shore up funds in order to save the company — launched just last May with $50 million — employees either “tapped out” by calling out sick because they believed their fate was already sealed or “worked harder” in the misguided hope that last-minute scoops could show potential investors that the Messenger was worth saving.
“Top editors were assigning stories two days before the site shutdown,” said one staffer. “It wasn’t clear that leaders had any clue what was going to happen.”
Even Wakeford was said to be out of the loop about the impending implosion, writing on the company’s internal Slack messaging system that he wasn’t aware that the site was shutting down after the news first broke.Other top editors also were kept in the dark, with one female supervisor chewing out staffers who had inquired about the company’s dismal-looking future.
With tensions high, the editor was angry that they had the “gall” to ask her if she knew whether the site would close down.
“If you’re in a high position, you make it your position to know what’s going on,” said one angry reporter who felt the editor’s wrath.
Late Thursday, the laid-off staffers fired back, filing a class-action suit in New York that alleges the company violated the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act by failing to give them 60 days’ notice ahead of the mass culling.
Finkelstein did not return calls for comment.
Tempers remained high, with the fired journalists pointing to a lack of leadership and communication as the Messenger’s tragic flaw.
Many of them pointed the finger at Wakeford, who was paid around $900,000, for allegedly being “MIA” from the company’s expansive, expensive headquarters in the Financial District, especially when it came to big editorial decisions.
“People did not know he was British,” said one surprised staffer, who said the first time they heard Wakeford speak was during an emergency meeting two and a half weeks ago — as reports surfaced about the Messenger’s imminent demise....
....MUCH MORE
For some reason I keep picturing this story posted in 2017:
"Chaos Ensued. The Masseuse Panicked and Jumped Onto the Jet Ski with the Captain."
...They couldn’t operate the first raft, but the second inflated and most of the surfers clambered in.
Denson, faced with 15 knot winds and 6 foot swells, could not. He began to swim, stopping to rescue the masseuse, who had fallen off the Jet Ski. The captain circled back to pick her up, but ran over Denson instead, the surfers say. Denson’s companions soon rescued him....
