Pitchfork to be folded into GQ, with multiple layoffs confirmed
According to a leaked email, it's "the best path forward for the brand"
Leading online music magazine Pitchfork will be 'folded' into men's fashion title GQ amid cuts by parent company Condé Nast.
An internal email written by the publishing giant's chief content officer, Anna Wintour, was leaked yesterday, Wednesday 17th January, on X (formerly Twitter). The move has been labelled a "restructure" of the digital-only platform, rather than a closure, and "the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company."
However, many readers, writers, and commenters have hit back at the phrasing and what this means for the future of the brand. The number of redundancies this entails has not been made public, but several members of staff have confirmed that they have been laid off. Among those leaving the company are Editor-in-Chief Puja Patel.
Features Editor Jillian Mapes announced on social media that she had been laid off this week, and raised the issue of placing a music publication under the control of a men's lifestyle magazine. "I've referred to my job at Pitchfork as being on a ferris wheel at closing time, just waiting for them to yank me down. After nearly eight years, mass layoffs got me. Glad we could spend that time trying to make it a less dude-ish place just for GQ to end up at the helm," Mapes wrote on X.
Ryan Schreiber, who launched Pitchfork as an independent blog in 1996 while working at a Minneapolis record store, also expressed his disappointment at the news. "Extremely saddened by the news that Condé Nast has chosen to restructure Pitchfork and lay off so much of its staff, including some who've been integral to its operations for many years/decades. Sending love to everyone affected and hoping for the best for its future."
In December, Condé Nast revealed it was preparing to cut 5% of its workforce across a vast portfolio of titles, equivalent to 300 positions. The company is still one of the largest publishers of consumer and specialist media in the world, posting revenue of $1.7 billion for 2022 from titles such as Vogue, British Vogue, WIRED, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. While significant, the cuts represent a fraction of redundancies within publishing since the pandemic.
The news comes months after approximately half of Bandcamp's employees were laid off after Songtrader acquired the artist-and label-driven music platform from Epic Games.
Elsewhere in the music press, Fact has taken the decision to end its 16-year-old mix series with the first instalment of 2024. The 940th edition comes from Tati au Miel, and is available here, and the magazine says "almost every mix we have ever published" will remain in an archive on SoundCloud.
