APBnews.com, the only news organization exclusively covering crime,
justice and safety, laid off its entire staff yesterday saying it has exhausted funding.
At a company-wide meeting Monday morning, APBnews.com Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer Marshall Davison made the announcement. While the company continues to seek investment, including continuing negotiations with major media companies, the company and site will operate on a limited basis.
All of the company’s approximately 140 employees have been terminated, but many are continuing to serve as volunteers.
APBnews.com will continue to post its content and distribute it to content partners. It also plans to continue its efforts to obtain financial disclosure records from the federal judiciary; APB Online sued the federal judiciary in December to force disclosure.
According to the latest PCData statistics, APBnews has 972,000 unique users per month, making it the seventh largest news site in that category. It is also seventh in pageviews, following MSNBC, CNN, USA Today, the Washington Post, ABC News and the New York Times. The Drudge Report and WorldNetDaily following in eighth and ninth place respectively in that category.
Employees are not being paid as of yesterday, but many are continuing their work on a volunteer basis for at least the balance of this week.
“APB Online was in the midst of its third round of financing in March when the market’s valuation of Internet companies drastically declined,” said Davidson. “Following this downturn was a difficult time to raise capital for most Internet companies, and negotiations with strategic business partners have taken longer than anticipated.”
“We began APB with a sincere desire to inform and serve our users, and I am proud that we have lived that mission,” said Davidson. “We wanted to produce great content, and our users and content partners and the journalism awards say we have done that.”