 | |
Type of site | Online magazine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | G/O Media |
| Created by | Henry Louis Gates Jr. Donald E. Graham |
| Editor | Tatsha Robertson |
| URL | theroot |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Launched | January 28, 2008 |
The Root is an African American-oriented online magazine. It was launched on January 28, 2008, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Donald E. Graham.
The Root was owned by Graham Holdings Company through its online subsidiary, The Slate Group. [1] [2] In 2015, Graham Holdings sold The Root to Univision Communications. [3] The site was subsequently re-launched under the Kinja platform used by other Gizmodo Media Group (formerly Gawker Media) websites. [4] GMG was later succeeded by G/O Media as owner of The Root.
In July 2017, the blog Very Smart Brothas, co-founded by Damon Young and Panama Jackson, became a vertical of The Root. [5]
Danielle Belton was editor-in-chief at The Root between 2017 and 2021, when she was appointed editor of HuffPost . [6] [7] On April 14, 2021, it was announced that Vanessa De Luca had been appointed editor-in-chief. [8] She was succeeded by Tasha Robertson on June 22, 2023. [9]
Since April 2021 The Root has seen substantial staff turnover with 15 out of the 16 full-time staffers resigning following internal tensions, with former staff member Michael Harriot saying that, "as a staff, we came to the conclusion that, basically, The Root is over." [10]
The Root 100 is the magazine's annual "list of the 100 most important black influencers between the ages of 25 and 45." [11] This list has been published since 2011, when it began ranking honorees using an influence score that resulted from a mathematical formula developed by scholar Omar Wasow. [12] Readers of The Root are allowed to nominate those who they feel are deserving of being on this list. The list has had a wide variety of people from celebrities such as Donald Glover, writers like Roxane Gay, and athletes. Other influential people in the black community who are not as well known, such as activists, are encouraged to be added to the list as well. [13]
Gawker was an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers that was based in New York City and focused on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month in 2015. Founded in 2002, Gawker was the flagship blog for Denton's Gawker Media. Gawker Media also managed other blogs such as Jezebel, io9, Deadspin and Kotaku.
Gawker Media LLC was an American internet media company and blog network. It was founded by Nick Denton in October 2003 as Blogwire, and was based in New York City. Incorporated in the Cayman Islands, as of 2012, Gawker Media was the parent company for seven different weblogs and many subsites under them: Gawker.com, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel. All Gawker articles are licensed on a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license. In 2004, the company renamed from Blogwire, Inc. to Gawker Media, Inc., and to Gawker Media LLC shortly after.
Kinja is a free online news aggregator, launched in April 2004. It is operated by G/O Media. It was formerly operated by Gizmodo Media Group, which was purchased by Univision Communications during Gawker Media's bankruptcy.
Essence is an American monthly lifestyle magazine covering fashion, beauty, entertainment, and culture. First published in 1970, the magazine is written for African-American women.
HuffPost is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy eating, young women's interests, and local news featuring columnists. It was created to provide a progressive alternative to conservative news websites such as the Drudge Report. The site contains its own content and user-generated content via video blogging, audio, and photo. In 2012, the website became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Kotaku is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier.
The A.V. Club is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. The A.V. Club was created in 1993 as a supplement to its satirical parent publication, The Onion. While it was a part of The Onion's 1996 website launch, The A.V. Club had minimal presence on the website at that point.
Deadspin is a sports blog founded by Will Leitch in 2005 and based in Chicago. Previously owned by Gawker Media, Univision Communications and G/O Media, it was sold to Lineup Publishing in March 2024.
Lifehacker is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on 31 January 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is owned by Ziff Davis. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Linux programs, iOS, and Android, as well as general life tips and tricks. The website is known for its fast-paced release schedule from its inception, with content being published every half hour all day long.
Raju Narisetti is a journalist and former newspaper editor who has been global publishing director at McKinsey & Company since 2020. From July 2018 to December 2019, he was a professor of professional practice and director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In October 2017, Narisetti was appointed to the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. He is one of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum.
Gizmodo is a design, technology, science, and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. Gizmodo also includes the sub-blogs io9 and Earther, which focus on pop-culture and environmentalism, respectively.
TelevisaUnivision is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City that owns American Spanish language broadcast network Univision and free-to-air channels in Mexico such as Las Estrellas, Canal 5, Foro, and NU9VE alongside a collection of specialty television channels and production studios. 45% of the company is held by the Mexican telecommunications and broadcasting company Grupo Televisa, which was a major programming partner for Univision until the company sold their content assets to Univision in 2022.
io9 is a sub-blog of the technology blog Gizmodo that focuses on science fiction and fantasy pop culture, with former focuses on science, technology and futurism. It was created as a standalone blog in 2008 by editor Annalee Newitz under Gawker Media. In 2015, io9 became a part of Gizmodo as part of a reorganization under parent company Gawker.
Jezebel is a US-based website featuring news and cultural commentary geared towards women. It was launched in 2007 by Gawker Media under the editorship of Anna Holmes as a feminist counterpoint to traditional women's magazines.
The Fusion Media Group is a division of Univision Communications. The company was launched in April 2016 after Univision bought out Disney's stake in Fusion through the Fusion Media Network joint venture between Univision & Disney-ABC. While Univision is focused on serving Hispanic America in Spanish, FMG is the company's multi-platform, English language division targeting young adults.
Gizmodo Media Group was an online media company and blog network formerly operated by Univision Communications in its Fusion Media Group division. The company was created from assets acquired from Gawker Media during its bankruptcy in 2016. In April 2019, Gizmodo and The Onion were sold to private equity firm Great Hill Partners, which combined them into a new company named G/O Media.
Splinter is an American left-leaning news and opinion website owned by Paste. It launched in July 2017 under Univision Communications and ceased publication in November 2019 following a sale to G/O Media. The dormant publication was acquired by Paste in November 2023 and relaunched March 26, 2024.
Damon Young is an American writer and editor. He is the co-founder of the website Very Smart Brothas. Young released his first book, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, in 2019 with HarperCollins.
G/O Media Inc. is an American media holding company that owns and operates several digital media outlets, including Kotaku, Jalopnik, The Root, The Inventory, and Quartz.
Danielle Belton is an American journalist who is the editor-in-chief of HuffPost. She worked with local and national publications, as well as developing a television series for BET. After joining The Root in 2015, she became its youngest managing editor and its first editor-in-chief. In 2021 she was selected as editor of HuffPost.
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 | This article relating to a magazine connected with culture is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See tips for writing articles about magazines. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |
 | This online magazine–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See tips for writing articles about magazines. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |