pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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

Already a bunch of chatter suggesting same, understandably. Whether it'll happen who knows but a couple of Defector folks have posted saying they'd be happy to take questions from anyone interested in their model.

iirc there was another similar subscriber-based site/model launched by former video game writers at Kotaku, WaPo and Vice. Aftermath?

Yeah, there's that, also 404Media for general tech.

Giant Bomb was ex Gamespot editors who got bounced over a dispute with a review, that was 08, probably the first of the community supported ex pats thing

Keith Harris and some other City Pages folks started Racket to fill the gap when the Star Tribute shuttered our free weekly, I'm a happy subscriber

https://racketmn.com/

welp, as Ann P. hinted at:

Welp… it happened. My time @pitchfork is being brought to an end, as it was announced today that the publication is being folded into GQ. It’s been the honor of my life to have worked here for the past 18-and-a-half (!) years…

— Amy Phillips (@amyhphillips) January 18, 2024

Heartbroken and left numb as the scope of devastation becomes clear. @Pitchfork, one of the most recognizable brands in media, was massacred today for no apparent reason.

— Jayson Greene (@Jayson_Greene) January 17, 2024

My condolences to everyone, this is really senseless. I honestly don't think it makes economic sense - it's their publisher's own failure if they don't believe they can do well with a devoted and faithful audience of music devotees that's never going to go away - but this is far most costly where it counts.

Shocking in a way other online guttings and collapses weren’t. I only look at PFork when there’s talk on ILM of something really dumb but there’s no reason the online criticism brand shouldn’t have been able to just keep pumping along forever at a reasonable profit margin.

This is insane. Like the new york times going out of business, of harvard university. Pitchfork always seemed like a stable institution. *the* hub of music journalism for as long as i have been paying attention.

I’m not sure why people are so surprised about this. For the past few years it has seemed like they’ve been grasping for a broader audience with their news coverage and reviews while completely abandoning coverage of music that was foundational to the publication. I’m not blaming this on poptism or whatever but there have been many times where I’ve thought “how many readers are they attracting with the T Swift coverage versus losing?” I’ve long been interested in seeing their readership numbers and demographic data but it has just felt like they have been trying too hard. Does anyone have a sense of what their readership was?

This feels like it’s been a long time coming. I’m optimistic that another better website will emerge that isn’t owned by a massive corporation. But unfortunately their writers probably won’t get paid as much as I assume CN pays.

Anyway, I’m genuinely interested if anyone has any insight into the business side of this.

For the past few years it has seemed like they’ve been grasping for a broader audience with their news coverage and reviews while completely abandoning coverage of music that was foundational to the publication.

people need to completely disabuse themselves of the notion that you can run a website that employs dozens of people while covering, what, news about arcade fire and animal collective? look around. how much money do you guys think news stories about mitski generate?

what other businesses do people look at and just pretend like two full decades haven't elapsed? it's not 2004. let go of this fantasy

completely abandoning coverage of music that was foundational to the publication

genuinely what are you talking about

their lead story for the day is about adrianne lenker's new album and tour lol it's not like the place is wall to wall travis kelce updates

i don't think anyone will deny there has been a shift to news & reviews being broader in coverage than before, but that shift happened like, over a decade ago for the most part, and they definitely haven't stopped covering and reviewing indie rock or whatever else is supposed to be foundational

what other businesses do people look at and just pretend like two full decades haven't elapsed? it's not 2004. let go of this fantasy

There's an irony in that the publication before it that it was most often (though mistakenly) compared to, Rolling Stone, absolutely relied on an eternal 1970-or-so for decades, thus me wondering as a reader in the Poppy Bush Interzone why there always seemed to be a Jerry Garcia cover story once a year, for instance.

and rolling stone has basically been a k pop clickfarm factory for years

there is potentially possibly not really but let's just run with this idea perhaps one person on planet earth who if they devoted their entire life to reviving coverage of the music that was foundational to pitchfork for several years could at some point down the road eke out a modest full time living via a small subscriber base that loves indie rock music journalism enough to pay for it monthly

That’s one example. You can’t tell me there hasn’t been a massive increase in coverage of Taylor Swift. And im not complaining, so please save your energy in piling on the idiot or whatever. If they are folding it under fucking GQ, then I’m probably not that far off in my assumption.

You can’t tell me there hasn’t been a massive increase in coverage of Taylor Swift.

this is like the one example in pop that's more recent because they didn't review her at all until 2019 which was a real notable absence in their coverage of the pop landscape at the time

but again, they definitely haven't stopped covering indie rock and no one is disputing their coverage has gotten broader over time

Anyway, I figured someone on here would have some insight into the readership numbers so we could skip all the speculation or bemoaning how it’s unconscionable.

very sad news. i love pitchfork

https://www.similarweb.com/website/pitchfork.com/#traffic

11.8M total visits in November
vs.
23.1M Rolling Stone
17.6M Billboard
9.1M NME
3.1M Stereogum
1.5M Spin

(Can't see traffic over time without a paid account.)

Xxpost so which numbers do you need? How much less Pitchfork would have made without the Taylor Swift news? How much more they would make if they turned into indie Mojo and just did oral histories of the Moon and Antartica or whatever? Some insight into why a huge corporation might decide to slash a bunch of jobs?

kinda amazed nme still gets that much

another better website will emerge that isn’t owned by a massive corporation

when was the last time you saw a new website?

That new weight loss website ro or whatever.

12 million should be more than enough but that is just an uneducated guess.

how does the quietus stay afloat? do they pay writers? is there an actual 'company' that runs it now?

@left - what i meant was that maybe a door could open for an existing website (like a Quietus) to capture readers that never ventured beyond pfork. Probably unlikely but theres clearly a market with 11 million monthly readers that probably dont want to moce on to NME or RS.

they have a subscription model which gives access to some exclusive articles & a podcast i think, in addition to advertising, but last year they mentioned cutting back significantly and publicly did a subscription drive because they were struggling

the quietus is not going to be able to fill the large niche pitchfork did, nor do i think anyone involved in it is really interested trying to be the new pitchfork. the closest in terms of general vibe is probably like, stereogum (though definitely more indie-oriented and less interesting) but they put out an order of magnitude less reviews as-is. the idea of an album reviews section is probably just dead now, or won't last much longer

Fwiw GQ.com only got 12.1M total visits in November. And to pick a few other Conde Nast titles:

17.5M Vogue
17M New Yorker
13.4M Bon Appetit
12.2M Vanity Fair

But these numbers obv don't tell the whole story when it comes to ad revenue.

they have a subscription model which gives access to some exclusive articles & a podcast i think, in addition to advertising, but last year they mentioned cutting back significantly and publicly did a subscription drive because they were struggling

Hi, tQ writer/subscriber here -- without pretending deep knowledge, the more recent state of things is that said drive really helped and in general the vibe has been more positive of late on these fronts. But no, it won't replace Pitchfork and won't try, it's on its own particular plane.

i'm glad to hear that things are working out there at the moment!

But these numbers obv don't tell the whole story when it comes to ad revenue.

i'd guess that there's some nonsense about p4k's demographics not being favourable enough to advertisers for very silly reasons that the ad industry, conde naste execs, etc. nonetheless take completely seriously

gotta chase that millennial male audience after all

No new content has been posted for Jan. 18, and there’s a big “Sign In” link at the top of the homepage :/