Editor Quits Famous Publication After Just 1 Week

A report shows that a media newcomer, The Messenger, just one week after coming online, has already lost one of its political editors due to what seems to be internal strife and criticism from rival media.

The New York Times wrote that the crew, which includes several veteran journalists who have worked at other prominent magazines, is encountering difficulties, and tensions are boiling.

Gregg Birnbaum, previously of The Miami Herald and CNN, served as the site’s political editor and butted heads with Neetzan Zimmerman, the Chief Growth Officer recruited to help the firm reach its shockingly ambitious traffic goals.  

The New York Times claims that the Messenger newsroom and journalist Twitter feeds had been inundated with constant criticism because of the company’s “blitzkrieg approach.” The tempo and attitude have been greeted with severe criticism from several sources.

Tensions flared up when one of The Messenger’s media squads allocated an article that was previously given via an editor on a different team. In a Slack group discussion, Mr. Zimmerman reminded editors that they should utilize a web-based form to organize story assignments. Some editors took exception to the directive since they preferred to utilize Slack for plotting stories.

Birnbaum left after a heated exchange on Slack.

In a message to the NY Times, Birnbaum identified traffic acquisition as the primary source of internal and external conflict.

A report reveals that The Messenger staffers said that the paper’s management had distributed a playbook instructing reporters and editors to answer three questions before producing a story.

  1. Would I visit this link? 
  2. Would I want to read it all? 
  3. Would I share the article? 

The Messenger debuted last Monday amid negative reviews from online media critics who said they couldn’t discover the site using search engines like Google.

Social media users well-versed in technology have also complained that the site didn’t bother with the contemporary fundamentals of SEO setup pre-launch.