Goodbye, Pacific Standard

I'd read Pacific Standard Magazine when it was still Miller-McCune News. Even had a feed for it as a widget on this blog, though after installing Ghostery on my various browsers in the past, I forgot to whitelist it, showing I'd followed it less, though I did come across some of its stories on Twitter and elsewhere, such as an occasional piece co-run, or secondarily run, in High Country News.

And now, it's gone.

The news was announced several days ago; the last official day is/was today, Aug. 16.

It was more than a would-be West Coast regional version of The Atlantic. Rather, it aimed to be a mix of a more activist version of a High Country News, a more environmentally focused regional TruthOut and similar.

I get employees being angry, per Daily Beast, especially full-time or contract editorial employees. But, I think managing editor Nicholas Jackson let his anger get the best of him when he told the terminated employees to "consider what sort of legal options might be available to them."

The story makes clear that its board, at least in their own comments, worked to do due diligence on severances and all other legal issues. It also seems like they were probably somewhat blindsided by founder and chief funder Sarah Miller McCune's decision to pull the plug.

OTOH, per the LA Times, even if she is a billionaire, I can't blame her. If 90-95 percent of the mag's revenue was from her largesse, via a foundation, you have to consider making that call, IMO. It never had a paywall and without that, if you're online only, as it recently had become, you're facing trouble, because specialty mags like that don't sell a lot of ads.

I also think it lacked focus. A story about India and Kashmir is nice, but it goes beyond punching above its weight to simply writing out of its league. There are places like LobeLog who have people with a much stronger foreign policy background and who also aren't part of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. In fact, LobeLog had a MUCH more detailed piece six days earlier.

So, having caught up in a degree to my Ghostery-fueled neglect? To be honest, I didn't miss THAT much.

It appears that PS Mag was the sole beneficiary of the Social Justice Foundation. Whether McCune, 77, is pulling the plug on the foundation entirely, or instead moving it in new directions, wasn't announced.

I'm not sure why the exiting executive editor of Deadspin included Pacific Standard with other mags and news sites she said didn't get how to run a newspaper or magazine, as I tweeted to her with this link. Rather, on the revenue side, in this case at least, it seems on-site staff was as flummoxed as owners. And, on the expenses side, per above, the editorial staff lacked as much focus as anybody.