Journalism layoffs have become something of a grim ritual, with dozens of talented, hardworking and well-sourced writers taking to social media to announce their need for new work whenever the industry turns the corner on a bad quarter.

Jezebel’s slow death over the past few years was exacerbated by the injection of private equity into the media industry, a medicine that has turned out to be worse than the disease.

They pioneered a voice-forward, irreverent and acerbic take on news, culture and women’s issues, advancing a tone and vocabulary that would have been unthinkable in print media, but which were the lingua franca of the internet.

The sites cultivated a profound loyalty from their readers, inviting them into a club of shared conviction and inspiring them to build their identities as feminists, thinkers and allies of the staff writers long before anyone learned the word “parasocial”.

These gambles paid off, not only in the careers of its alumni but in the work of its staff writers – now unemployed – whose angry, committed and morally lucid reporting over the past two years has been the rare bright spot of post-Dobbs abortion coverage.

Jezebel’s voice, its unabashed political commitment, its willingness to explore questions of freedom and dignity, right and wrong, and to risk making mistakes – these are not present in what remains of the media landscape.

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