When media get powerful, the rich shut it down

On Nov. 2, DNAinfo.com founder and CEO Joe Ricketts, a billionaire who gave his children the seed money to buy the Chicago Cubs, ended operations and shut down the news websites of DNAinfo and Gothamist after the New York newsroom voted to unionize.

By doing this, Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade and a Donald Trump donor, not only abruptly ended a key cog in news coverage in New York and Chicago and put over 100 people out of work, he also told on himself.

“I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.

And that corrosive dynamic makes no sense in my mind where an entrepreneur is staking his capital on a business that is providing jobs and promoting innovation,” Ricketts said on his personal blog Sept. 12.

“That’s why the type of company that interests me is one where ownership and the employees are truly in it together, without interference from a third-party union that has its own agenda and priorities. I’m not interested in any agenda at any company I start, other than working together to deliver something exceptional to consumers and doing it as everyone pulls shoulder-to-shoulder tackling whatever the marketplace throws at us.”

Ricketts deserves a sliver of credit for starting DNAinfo.

However, the way things ended shows that his narrative of how vital news coverage and how he wants to run a business didn’t mesh.

I just wish he would’ve thought a little bit more of the people who made DNAinfo and Gothamist what it was.

I was a victim of the initial round of DNAinfo Chicago editorial cuts that took place in December 2016. When the recent cuts happened, I thought of my former colleagues.

I spent more time around these folks than my own family, so I got to know so many of them on a personal level. I got to know their wives, husbands, significant others and their children, so you can see where my fierce loyalty comes from.

I know what it is like to make a phone call to your family and tell them you no longer have a job.

The strain it puts on a household is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

When I read that letter from my former boss on the shutdown, I was so angry and sad for my former colleagues and their families.

I know that DNAinfo reporters cared deeply about the neighborhoods they covered.

I heard from so many people since the news got out.

Hearing from the people, I know we fought the good fight.

And when people casually say “Where’s the media?” I hope they think about times like this.