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    Truthdig closed down Archived Message

    Posted by Mary on March 31, 2020, 11:54 am

    Amid the coronavirus crisis, a wealthy publisher shuts down an ‘important progressive media outlet’
    Censored stamp

    On 25 March, staff at progressive media outlet Truthdig got an email from on high. It essentially fired them and announced the dissolution of the company. Two weeks earlier, they had gone on strike over “unfair labor conditions”.

    A week before the email, The Canary spoke to Truthdig‘s star columnist – the award-winning Chris Hedges. He was representing the striking employees, and he highlighted the role the site’s publisher was playing in tearing down what employees had spent years building up.

    A publisher’s coup?
    Hedges explained that:

    The publisher of Truthdig, Zuade Kaufman, who has lent the site an estimated two or three million dollars, has had over the past few months several clashes with the editor-in-chief and co-owner of the site, Robert Scheer. These disputes have revolved around editorial decisions that Scheer has made. And they include his critiques of the Democratic Party, his critique of the whole Russiagate hysteria. And finally, the publisher decided that she would remove Scheer… she did this by attempting to smear him claiming that… he was bullying and harassing the staff, which was patently untrue. And so Scheer got legal counsel. They started mediation. And then the publisher… gave a deadline… by which she would withdraw the money from the site and bankrupt the site and therefore seize control of the site, all of its assets, get rid of Scheer.

    /..
    https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2020/03/30/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-wealthy-publisher-shuts-down-an-important-progressive-media-outlet/

    She's here in the middle.


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