pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

https://x.com/PhilipSherburne/status/1734276629357093166?s=20

Hmmm.

News: In a note to staff, Condé Nast announces that Pitchfork is being moved under GQ. pic.twitter.com/8NzvtYKFLB

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) January 17, 2024

GQ's been doing some good work lately. "The Best Athletic Fit Jeans for Your Big, Beautiful Thighs" is a banger.

Lovely.

Per the link, Puja Patel is out as editor. In a Bluesky response to my posts over there just now, Marc Hogan is saying more layoff meetings are happening and he figures it'll hit him in half an hour.

Whoa

I can't underplay how grim this is.

Agreed.

Nothing will ever again exist as a synecdoche for Everything Wrong With Music and/or Music Journalism in the way Pitchfork did. What will we all bitch about now?

have the most obnoxious people on Twitter come out of the woodwork yet to say this is because of poptimism

this is disgusting, short-sighted, stupid decision

have the most obnoxious people on Twitter come out of the woodwork yet to say this is because of poptimism

― Murgatroid,

yes?

I've referred to my job at pitchfork as being on a ferris wheel at closing time, just waiting for them to yank me down. after nearly 8 yrs, mass layoffs got me. glad we could spend that time trying to make it a less dude-ish place just for GQ to end up at the helm

— Jill Mapes (@jillian_mapes) January 17, 2024

Nothing will ever again exist as a synecdoche for Everything Wrong With Music and/or Music Journalism in the way Pitchfork did. What will we all bitch about now?

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Wednesday, January 17, 2024 1:35 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

My pitch: MTV restarts Total Request Live as some sort of Twitch/Tiktok thing. The rotating cast of hosts is pulled from the most popular music review youtubers

barf, imagine accidentally pulling up F@ntano on your big screen

I started interning at Pitchfork in January 2010, and after a short gap, was hired part-time in March 2012. This job has been a big part of my life ever since. Today I was laid off.

— evan minsker (@evanminsker) January 17, 2024

Mapes posted that Ryan Dombal -- who's worked there for 15 years -- is also out.

They were the features editors when I still wrote there.

left Game Informer about 9 years ago now, after 16 years, I always wanted to be an entertainment journalist and getting to write about video games was a blast for most of it but at the end of the day I just didn't see the future...I hate to be discouraging to a kid that still asks me about it but the job of entertainment journalist basically doesn't exist anymore than a job of making wheels for a covered wagon does, outside of people with day jobs who do it as a hobby (much like how music itself is!)

but it's just over and you can't pretend otherwise anymore :(

really heartbreaking

I have been writing for Pitchfork regularly since 2004. I joined full-time in 2016. I know music journalism isn't exactly brain surgery, but I have been privileged to do a bunch of work I'm really proud of, with amazing colleagues. Like too many of them, I was laid off today.

— Marc Hogan (@MarcHogan) January 17, 2024

So depressing, I'm sorry to all the good ilxors that are going to be impacted by this. Still some really tremendous writing even recently, especially worthwhile for things like the Sunday reviews.

UMS said it all very well.

I think back to being like 23 and wanting so badly to be in entertainment (arts/music) journalism, and it still felt like it at least had a future - and then the dominoes started falling.

seems very bleak, end of an era

I'm not seeing much about what this entails for the site (apart from the layoffs). Is this all that's come out?

Pitchfork is going to continue publishing, but future seems unclear medium/long term. I’m told this was a business side decision, advertising is stronger at other Conde brands like GQ. But don’t have much more info yet…

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) January 17, 2024

Most likely GQ will publish reviews or none at all.

jon otm across the board. they were getting better all the time. even i, in all of my cynicism and vitriol, still became at least a weekly deep reader in the past few years because, well... it was finally getting good! there was even some redemption happening.

big sigh.

best wishes to everyone here affected.

Ugh really sorry to hear all of this, even if it's not shocking. I had long wondered how viable Pitchfork was. I don't always love or agree with Pitchfork, but it's one of my regular stops and I have definitely been introduced to lots of stuff I like via them.

I've started downloading PDFs.

a lot of love to you Alfred and to all who have put in the work at this site. feel like it took this shoe a lot longer to drop than I expected but they really seem to be dropping the hammer now. everybody has their beef w/Pitchfork on this or that matter, me included, but it's been a big part of the story in my life over the years.

Sending good feeling to all who work/write for them.

An unconscionable decision, tbh.

I wasn't really following at the time, but was there any serious backlash on the CN sale back when it happened? Of course it seemed like a good decision at the time, I'm sure, but I also have the punk side of me that's like... "never trust the big corporations, they will drop you as soon as you become unruly or unprofitable." that isn't really smart business thinking, but it's advice that i think could be whispered into more ears more often.

At the time there was a lot of lolling about Millennial Males.

table, i recall being "that guy" and thinking it would go the route of rolling stone, but for millennials: everything's pretty okay and terrible things happen and here's your favorite music worth listing, again.

i will say that i'm glad i was wrong. great work, all involved since then.

You know why Conde Nast broke them? Because they unionized.

That is sad.

it is infuriating.

Pitchfork was never more diverse than when they joined CN and Puja became editor. They unionized during the CN era -- there's an irony of history for you. Of course the expansion of their coverage exposed them to criticism, much of it deserved, much of it noted on this thread, but instead of making their mistakes in college newspapers like many of us did these younger writers were doing it with what remained of a dimming spotlight.

Whatever remains of the publication it doesn't deserve absorption into whatever the fuck GQ is these days.

i have not the proper language to express the intensity of my feelings about this situation.

thank for the wise words + insight, alfred.

*thanks

I've started downloading PDFs.

Wisdom. Doublechecked and have my files backed up in a couple of locations, there if I need them.

the NYT article begins "Pitchfork, once a cultural bastion for music criticism..." (oof)

but I also have the punk side of me that's like... "never trust the big corporations, they will drop you as soon as you become unruly or unprofitable." that isn't really smart business thinking

On the contrary, every day that looks more and more like smart business thinking

Also I hear that one person who worked at Pfork for nearly two decades, who invented fundamental aspects of its editorial content, who is one of the nicest and most solid people in this often nasty music biz, got laid off. No names bc privacy. But it's brutal and wrong

— Feeling Distant (@annkpowers) January 17, 2024

(I mean I was hoping that person had survived.)

As of 3:30 p.m. today I know one person.

I should note that Conde Nast hired Puja after a yearlong tenure at SPIN during which she expanded the range of review coverage, including who wrote the reviews. She hired me as part-time assignments editor -- a giddy time. CN hiring her in the fall of '18 was an inevitability. I don't pretend to know the machinations of corporate politics, but it's become obvious that, like Wilde said, each man -- I emphasize man -- kills the thing he loves.

I went looking through the reviews archives and when I clicked into a review was told I needed to create a CN account to read it. Not sure how long that’s been the case, but it’s the first time I’ve run into that.

the website that publishes four reviews daily often of experimental and art music just got gutted and a bunch of podcast parasocial gossip addicts are excited for what this means about Poptimism, absolute morons

— david drake (@somanyshrimp) January 17, 2024

I just found out I'm still employed but I cannot fathom what pitchfork will be without @evanminsker @jillian_mapes @ryandombal @MarcHogan @allisonhussey @hatlindert @PoRican. They aren't just talented writers & editors. They're incredible, generous, kind people who deserve better

— Nina Corcoran (@Nina_Corcoran) January 17, 2024

Sam Sodomsky and Marina Kozak were wise enough to ditch twitter, but all of them make pitchfork what it is and put an absurd amount of time & care into it behind the scenes. What a genuine privilege to learn from them, be edited by them, and make bad jokes over slack with them

— Nina Corcoran (@Nina_Corcoran) January 17, 2024

so that's at least 10 staffers including Patel

Pitchfork refugees need their own Defector