'Rickettsist' Responds To Shuttered DNAinfo, Gothamist Sites

CHICAGO, IL — On the same day that Joe Ricketts, billionaire owner of the Chicago Cubs and founder of TD Ameritrade, abruptly shut down his collection of local news sites, a local web developer set up a new site to mock the man. The site, "Rickettsist.com" features a similar visual appearance to the Gothamist family of local news blogs. It purports to be "the Number One Place for Ricketts News And Information," and it was created by Chicago-based software engineer and writer James Allenspach.

"If yo're not familiar with our Website," writes author "Joey R." in a tongue-in-cheek note, "you will be soon enough, as your own favorite independent news site may very well be coming to our family."

Some satirical sample headlines on the site's sidebar include, "The 15 Best Ways To Stop Reporting Local News And Information," "15 Crazy Tricks To Turn Wrigley Field Into A Mall," and "The 14 Best Ways To Stop Unionizing."

Ricketts' network of digital news websites, which included bureaus in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, had been expanding as recently as March, when Ricketts purchased Gothamist's local news and culture sites.

Now, 115 staffers, including journalists, developers and other employees, have been given three months of paid leave – if they don't get new work – and one month of severance pay.

Around 4 p.m. Thursday, with no warning, all DNAinfo and Gothamist sites were replaced with a letter from Ricketts announcing the closure, blaming insufficient progress toward making his project economically viable.

"I created the Rickettsist site [Thursday] night in about an hour, as a response to the news," Allenspach told Patch. "The move was framed in the statement as an economic issue, and I have no doubt that was the deciding factor. This seemed to me a logical conclusion of focusing more on economic issues and making the local news sites turn a profit, and not taking into account the benefits that local reporting provides the communities served by the Gothamist and DNAinfo sites."

Ricketts' publicly posted letter did not mention that editorial staff in New York had recently voted to unionize, which a spokesperson later confirmed was a factor in his decision to shutter the local news publications.

"I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed," Ricketts, wrote on his blog in September.

"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 wrote.

The prominent conservative patriarch of the Chicago Cubs' ownership group has an estimated net work of more than $2 billion and pledged more than $1 million in support of President Donald Trump last year.

Allenspach, the Rickettsist creator, said he was also reminded about how the Ricketts family has been renovating Wrigleyville, making the surroundings of the Friendly Confines "more of a tourist and corporate destination," and forcing out non-sports businesses to create a "sports super-complex catering to the whole family."

"Ricketts’ closing of the sites yesterday seems to me another step in making the world conform to his own personal interests, rather than taking his customers into account," Allenspach said. "I certainly hope that some new news & information sites spring up to take the place of these popular online publications, because in this age of corporate control of our media, independent local reporting is extremely vital."

Ricketts founded DNAinfo in 2007 and says he has lost money on it every month. The terms of his March 2017 acquisition of Gothamist were not officially disclosed but were reportedly in the low seven figures.

While previously published stories are currently inaccessible, a company spokesperson said DNAinfo will be preserving the companies archives. Details of how stories will be preserved "are among the issues the company will address in the coming weeks."

The mayors of Chicago and New York responded to Ricketts' announcement on Twitter, offering to provide reporters with clips of their past stories from city archives.

Joe Ricketts is a coward. He wouldn't last a minute under the intrepid scrutiny of the reporters he employed. What a loss for our city. https://t.co/IH0NH3JM0Z
— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 3, 2017

Deeply disappointed at the decision to shut down DNAinfo and Chicagoist, which provided valuable reporting for Chicago's neighborhoods.
— Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) November 3, 2017

• Read more: DNAinfo, Chicagoist Shut Down, Owner Joe Ricketts Announces

_{Top photo: Joe Ricketts | Kris Connor | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images}