The D.C. local news website DCist shut down Thursday, a week after reporters and editors of websites run by the same company voted to join a union.
Anyone who tries to visit the DCist site or that of its sister company DNAinfo now sees a statement from owner Joe Ricketts -- the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade.
He cited financial troubles as the cause of the sites' demise.
"DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure," said Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs.
DCist published several stories Thursday in the hours before Ricketts' statement appeared on the sites at 5 p.m.
One DCist staffer found out the site had been shut down when she refreshed the page and found the letter, Washingtonian reported.
Staffers for DNAinfo.com and Gothamist.com in New York voted last week to join a union. Management threatened earlier this year to shut down the company if they did.
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
The news comes as Washington City Paper seeks an owner and Baltimore City Paper just released its final issue.
