- Political news site Splinter is shutting down two years after its launch.
- Paul Maidment, the editorial director of G/O Media, praised Splinter's journalism in an internal memo Tuesday announcing the shutdown. He said it would not reduce G/O editorial staff numbers, according to The Daily Beast's Maxwell Tani.
- But Splinter staff made their own announcements on Twitter Thursday, with many saying they were being laid off.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Splinter, the political news site owned by G/O Media, announced Thursday that it was shutting down two years after its launch in 2017.
Editor-in-Chief Aleksander Chan posted about the site's shutdown on Twitter.
"It has been my greatest honor to have been the editor of this site and I will love this staff to my dying breath," Chan wrote. "Thank you to all of our readers, fans, and haters - it's been a thrill."
Paul Maidment, the editorial director of G/O Media, sent an internal memo to Splinter staff Tuesday to let them know the site would shutter, Maxwell Tani reported for The Daily Beast.
G/O made the decision to shut the site down because it was unable to establish a "steady and sustainable audience," Maidment wrote in the memo published by The Daily Beast.
"Given that reality, the leadership team made the difficult decision to cease operation of Splinter and redistribute the headcount to the other sites to increase the impact the editorial department can have overall," Maidment wrote.
Although Maidment's memo told staff they would be redistributed to other company sites like Gizmodo and Jezebel, several Splinter journalists have since tweeted about being laid off.
"So @splinter_news is shutting down and I'm getting laid off," staff writer Sam Grasso tweeted.
Deputy editor Jack Mirkinson also took to Twitter to announced the shutdown and layoffs.
"We're all being laid off," he wrote. "This is by far the best job I've ever had and I will be forever proud of everything we've done together."
