Vox Media Announces Merger With New York Media

By Naomi LaChance | September 25, 2019 | 3:40am

Labor

Vox Media has acquired New York Media, according to a report published in the New York Times Tuesday. Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff said that the company would not lay off editorial employees or fold any publications.

“Nothing changes editorially for any of our brands,” Bankoff said.

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Both companies have had layoffs recently, though. In March, New York Magazine laid off 16 full-time staff members and 16 part-time workers as part of a “restructuring.” In 2018, Vox laid off 50 employees. Later that year, Vox folded its style site Racked.

In June, the Vox union secured a contract after 14 months of negotiations and 300 workers walked off the job. Under the Writers Guild of America, East, workers were able ensure a $56,000 minimum salary and four months of paid parental leave.

New York Magazine recognized its workers’ union with NewsGuild of New York/CWA Local 31003 in February, but apparently haven’t agreed to a contract.

Pamela Wasserstein, the chief executive of New York Media and the new Vox Media president, told the Times: “No one had to do this. It’s a brilliant, in our view, opportunity, so that’s why we leaned into it. It’s not out of need. It’s out of ambition.”

According to the Times, Vox Media has raised $300 million in funding, with $200 million of that coming from NBCUniversal.

Staffers at New York Magazine said they were not notified of the merger before the article was published.

Bankoff then delivered this beautiful word salad that says absolutely nothing and shows he is just as great a wordsmith as some of his staffers.

“We see a lot of mergers that are done for the wrong reason: because one or two companies might be desperate, or for financial engineering,” Bankoff said. “We’ve been struck by the lackluster ambitions of a lot of the other tie-ups, and the lackluster rationales. What was important to us both was making sure that the market knew that this was something different.”

The merger will mean many different sites will be under the same management, including two food blogs. Curbed, The Cut, Eater, Grub Street, Intelligencer, New York Magazine, Polygon, Recode, SB Nation, The Strategist, The Verge, Vox, and Vulture will all reportedly be one big happy family called Vox Media.