DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City's most notable local news blogs, both abruptly shut down on Thursday afternoon.
In a note posted to both websites at 5 p.m., DNAinfo CEO Joe Ricketts said he decided to stop publishing both sites effective immediately.
"DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure," he said. "And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasn't been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded."
DNAinfo and Gothamist sites in other cities -- including Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, San Francisco and Shanghai -- also have the same message on their home pages.
Rickets' decision comes a week after the editorial staffs of DNAinfo and Gothamist voted to unionize. According to the New York Times, which first reported the shut-down, Ricketts -- the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs -- and other management warned there could be dire consequences.
DNAinfo was founded in 2009, and was designed to cater to news consumers seeking local coverage of issues in their communities. Gothamist, meanwhile, was founded in 2003 and was sold to Ricketts earlier this year.
