What Was Quartz?

"It's impossible to kill a media brand," Jim Spanfeller told me on my first day working for him, as we sat in his corner office. He had just bought the business news organization, Quartz, that I had spent the past decade building and, most recently, trying desperately to save from oblivion. So I was inclined to believe him. But I knew it wasn't true. Jim and his private-equity-backed digital-media conglomerate G/O Media had already destroyed several of their properties, some all at once (Deadspin), most of the others by sapping resources, antagonizing their staff, and undermining the editorial visions that once made them great (Jezebel, The Root). It would take him three years to do the same to Quartz. The end came on Friday, when G/O fired the few remaining writers at Quartz and sold the carcass to a Canadian firm that appears mostly interested in the email list. I thought back to Jim's comment. His cynical view of digital media was good neither for journalism nor business, but mayb ... Read full article.