The Messenger was launched last May and spent heavily — some would say excessively, given the current media climate — in hopes of becoming a media heavyweight.
BEACH, Fla. The Messenger, an ambitious online news site that billed itself as a nonpartisan digital outlet and spent some $50 million ratcheting up its business effort, abruptly shut down Wednesday after only eight months in operation.
Founder Jimmy Finkelstein sent an email to stunned employees announcing the immediate shutdown, with some 300 journalists and other workers being let go, according to the The New York Times, which first reported the news.
In his email, Finkelstein said he hadn’t shared the news with employees earlier because he had been trying desperately to raise enough funds to become profitable “literally until earlier today.”
“We exhausted every option available,” Finkelstein wrote, saying he was “personally devastated.
