| | | Conservative Joe Ricketts, Cubs
family patriarch who closed DNAinfo
after union vote, to launch Omaha-
based ‘unbiased’ news site
Chicago Tribune, by Staff
Original Article
The patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs is getting back in the newsgathering business. The Omaha World-Herald reported on Sunday that billionaire businessman and philanthropist Joe Ricketts is hiring staff to launch an online national news source called Straight Arrow News. “I think there’s a gap in the market — there’s no source for unbiased, fact-based news,” Ricketts told the World-Herald in an emailed response to questions last week. “And I believe there’s a business opportunity there.” It isn’t the politically conservative Ricketts’ first journalistic endeavor. He launched DNAinfo, a news website that provided local coverage in Chicago and New York, in 2009. He later bought Gothamist, another New York-based news site, and then merged the two.
But by November 2017, amid staff unionization efforts, the Tribune reported, Ricketts shut down DNAinfo and the Gothamist sites, saying the ad-supported business model was not viable. The staff’s decision to unionize made it harder for the business to be financially successful, a DNAinfo spokesperson said at the time. |
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