Another platform for hit pieces aimed at the Big Bear and me is headed for the dustbin of history:
The Daily Beast is gutting its senior editorial team after implementing voluntary buyouts last month, with nearly 70% of unionized staffers leaving the outlet, TheWrap has learned.
The senior staffers taking buyouts include media reporter Justin Baragona, political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery, senior national reporter Pilar Melendez, senior reporter Emily Shugerman, and more, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation. Twenty-five unionized staffers took the buyouts, equivalent to nearly 70% of the guild, including almost all of the outlet’s senior staffers.
Additionally, non-union editorial staffers are expecting another round of layoffs at the end of the month. “We’re currently watching the collapse of The Beast,” the individual told TheWrap. “There is no doubt the site won’t be able to recover from this.”
They come, they slander, and then they die.
It’s rather amusing to see how they always assume they are powerful and influential enough to discredit, deplatform, and destroy us, and yet they’re not even capable of surviving without being constantly propped up with someone else’s money.
Our organic and unauthorized community of Dread Ilk and Bears, along with our allies in the Razorforce and the rest of the Unauthorized, is observably stronger, more resilient, and longer-lived than these organizations that are founded by billionaires, lavishly funded, and massively supported by their fellow media organs. Which is why their inevitable demises are worth celebrating when they occur.
At this point, I won’t be surprised if we outlast The Guardian, founded in 1821, despite it being the beneficiary of a massive trust fund. The Guardian stopped reporting its daily circulation in 2021 after falling from 161,152 in March 2016 to 105,134 in July 2021, and is now estimated to have a circulation of only 60,000.
UPDATE: Owen comments: “Yeah, bludgeoning is the go-to for a bear.”