DNAinfo Buys Gothamist

NEW YORK, NY — Two of the city's leading outlets for neighborhood news, DNAinfo New York and Gothamist, are now one. New York billionaire Joe Ricketts, owner and founder of DNAinfo's news sites in NYC and Chicago, announced Wednesday that he had "acquired" all five of Gothamist, LLC's sites in America: Gothamist, Chicagoist, LAist, SFist and DCist.

Ricketts is calling his new DNAinfo-Gothamist hybrid "the most potent online source of neighborhood news and information available anywhere."

"Gothamist's reach and sensibility," he said Wednesday, are the "perfect complement to DNAinfo's depth and focus."

As of last year, DNAinfo reported around 4.3 million people were visiting its sites per month — less than half the 9 million monthly visitors to Gothamist's sites.

The price tag on the deal has not been made public. However, multiple news outlets have reported it to be in the low seven figures.

Here's what the merger will look like in practice, according to a press release from DNAinfo:

• Gothamist and Chicagoist's sites will remain intact, but will now be known as the "official blogs" of DNAinfo New York and DNAinfo Chicago, respectively.

• Content on the Gothamist and Chicagoist sites will be on the "lighter" side: events, viral stories, food and arts coverage, etc. Meanwhile, "DNAinfo's reporting staff continues to focus on neighborhood news."

• It's not yet clear exactly how LAist, SFist and DCist will change, if at all, but they are likely to play a role in DNAinfo's "vision for future expansion," as Ricketts puts it.

• Gothamist's co-founders, Jen Chung and Jake Dobkin, will now work for DNAinfo. "Chung will become vice president of New York editorial for DNAinfo, overseeing content for both DNAinfo New York and Gothamist, while Dobkin will be named DNAinfo's vice president for strategy and expansion."

• Dan Swartz, who up to now has been working as DNAinfo's chief marketing officer, will be promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer of DNAinfo. Chung and Dobkin will report to him.

Somewhat controversially, Gothamist co-founder Dobkin also said Wednesday that his sites will no longer cover Ricketts-related news.

After Jezebel noticed Wednesday that Gothamist and Chicagoist had removed at least five past stories on Ricketts, Dobkin told a Jezebel reporter: “Just as Bloomberg doesn’t cover Bloomberg, we don’t plan to cover Joe Ricketts and so we decided to take down our coverage of him. No one asked us to do it. It was a decision made solely by Jen [Chung] and me.” (Jezebel noted that in fact, Bloomberg does cover Bloomberg.)

Ricketts, a staunch Republican who pumps millions into conservative political campaigns and causes, is just the kind of character that Gothamist would normally lampoon — and did, in the now-deleted posts. His son, Todd Ricketts, is co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and was recently named President Donald Trump's deputy secretary of commerce.

Dobkin told the Observer earlier Wednesday that Ricketts "wants to add an opinion section to the site, where liberals and conservatives can debate city issues."

This story has been updated.