Eater Isn't Essential Without Journalism

On Thursday, August 8, Vox Media laid off 15 members of Eater, Punch, and Thrillist, the award-winning food, drink, and travel news and recommendation sites, while management celebrated Eater’s 20th anniversary. The cuts followed Jim Bankoff’s usual pattern of coming without warning, stunning the staff and decimating local coverage in the Midwest, including Chicago, the country’s third-largest market.

This is the second restructuring at Eater in less than 10 months. The cuts come not only one month after the Vox Media Union ratified its new collective bargaining agreement, but also two months after the James Beard Awards, “the Oscars of the food world,” where Eater and Punch earned four nominations and two wins.

The timing of the cuts comes when morale is at an all-time low with our colleagues pulled in several directions in new roles, leaving little confidence in leadership’s vision. That confusion has led to a mangled product that strays from the values that made Eater one of the most trusted sources for dining news.

The firings came a week after Vox’s Bankoff claimed in an interview there would be no imminent layoffs. The news is another blow as Eater says farewell to a cohort of award-winning and dedicated journalists who fought tooth and nail to keep the wall between editorial and advertising intact. We sound like a broken record, but we are once again grateful to have bargained for industry-leading severance language in our latest contract.

This GoFundMe is being organized by a committee of members of the Vox Media Union. All funds raised will directly benefit the union members impacted by the August 7 layoffs, and all funds raised will be distributed in equal shares to those who opt-in to receive funds. The organizers of this fund will be reaching out to those impacted by the layoffs in the coming days with details about how to sign up for their share of the funds.

Our union is committed to standing together in support of our colleagues who were laid off, and will hold management accountable for how these layoffs were conducted. With these funds, we hope to ease the financial burden that these layoffs have placed on our colleagues some of who face mounting medical bills and are charged with being their family's primary caretakers.

The Vox Media Union layoff fund is being overseen by a committee of Vox Media Union members, including Ashok Selvam, Jaya Saxena, and Amy McCarthy. The fund will operate transparently, with full accounting of all donations that are received and distributed.