Hell Gate NYC

Last updated

Hell Gate
Good blogs for the greatest city.
Logo since July 8, 2024
FormatDigital
Founder(s)
  • Nick Pinto
  • Esther Wang
  • Christopher Robbins
  • Max Rivlin-Nadler
  • Sydney Pereira
FoundedMay 2, 2022
Headquarters Brooklyn
Circulation 5,368 paid subscribers(as of October 2024) [1]
Website hellgatenyc.com

Hell Gate NYC is an online worker-owned publication focused on local New York City news. [2] [3] The publication is named after the Hell Gate Bridge, due to the bridge's reputation for tenacity. [4] [5] Hell Gate covers a wide range of topics that include, but are not limited to, political corruption, local street performers, and strange subway advertisements. [6] The company is headquartered in a co-working space in Brooklyn. [5]

Contents

History

The founders of Hell Gate, Nick Pinto, Esther Wang, Christopher Robbins, Max Rivlin-Nadler, and Sydney Pereira, began developing the idea for the publication in 2021. [4] Many of them were former coworkers at local publications such as the Village Voice, The New York Times, and Gothamist, as well as non-NYC publications such as Jezebel and The Intercept . [4] Pinto, Robbins, and Rivlin-Nadler had all faced job instability as journalists due to companies mismanaging resources, lacking funding, and cutting budgets. [7] In January 2022, they pitched the idea of Hell Gate to fifty local journalists, and recruited Pereira and Wang. [7] The team decided that their publication would have a snarky tone like pre-acquisition Gothamist, and that they would approach stories from a human rights-oriented perspective. [3]

Hell Gate launched the website as a test on May 2, 2022, and launched in full two months later. [8]

Business model

Hell Gate's initial funding came from two New York-based organizations for the arts: a $25,000 grant from The Harnisch Foundation, and a $50,000 grant from the Vital Projects Fund. [3] A further $300,000 in grants was given between 2023 and 2024. [1] It supports its journalism with tiered subscriptions to access its articles behind a paywall. [3] The founders believed that a subscription-funded business would work. [4] As of October 2024, the site had 5,368 paid subscribers and costs an average of $59,000 per month to run. [1]

To keep costs down, they wrote from home and published online, [4] using the same provider as Defector Media, another worker-owned cooperative. [3]

Hell Gate is a worker-owned cooperative, where the journalists have the job of reporter, editor, and managing the business. [3] [4] They also hire freelancers. [7] As of March 2024, all of the worker-owners were paid $60,000 per year. [9] The company offers tiered [9] and annual subscriptions, [3] but the subscription revenue is not enough to be sustaining, as of October 2024. [5] Hell Gate also offers a free newsletter. [4] Advertisements are not a major source of revenue. [10] [1] Half of its revenue comes from donations. [9]

Reception

Hell Gate has been identified by numerous outlets to be part of a resurgence in indie publishing. They have been favorably compared to other worker-owned sites like Defector and 404 Media. [2] [6] [11]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Hell Gate 2024 Annual Report". October 11, 2024. Retrieved October 11, 2024. As of October 10, we have 5,368 paid subscribers to our website; 20,840 subscribers to our bi-weekly Inbox Hell newsletter; and 19,856 subscribers to our new daily Morning Spew newsletter (both of which are free).
  2. 1 2 Loewinger, Micah (July 21, 2023). "The Rise of Worker-Owned Journalism | On the Media". WNYC Studios . Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tameez, Hanaa' (September 6, 2022). ""We can't just cover the same old shit": How worker-owned Hell Gate is bringing the alt-weekly voice back to New York City". Nieman Lab . Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Choiniere, Alyssa (January 23, 2023). "Scrappy startup Hell Gate fills NYC's missing alt voice, keeping authority in check with a sense of humor". Editor & Publisher . Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 Wagner, Laura (October 12, 2024). "For the reporters of Hell Gate, heaven is covering Mayor Eric Adams". The Washington Post . Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  6. 1 2 Pejcha, Camille Sojit (October 16, 2023). "The next wave of indie publishing". Document Journal. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 Wong, Ashley (July 20, 2022). "Tired of Waiting for Their Dream Workplace, These Writers Made Their Own". The New York Times . Archived from the original on February 13, 2024. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  8. ↑ "It's Our Birthday! Help Us Celebrate". Hell Gate. May 2, 2024. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  9. 1 2 3 Mechling, Lauren (March 2, 2024). "Journalism is in freefall. These writers aren't giving up: 'We can go out swinging'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  10. ↑ Doerrer, Brandon (November 20, 2023). "New breed publishers favor subscription revenue as brand safety controls cut off ad supply". PR Week. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  11. ↑ Silverman, Justin R. (April 18, 2024). "404 Media and the hopes of worker-owned journalism". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved April 28, 2024.{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
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