The iconoclastic online music publication Pitchfork, best known for its daily music criticism and its multiday festivals in Chicago and Paris, is being folded into the glossy monthly GQ, parent company Condé Nast announced Wednesday.
Founded by a Minneapolis-area record-shop employee and based in Chicago for most of its 28-year history prior to its acquisition in 2015 by magazine publisher Condé Nast, a unit of Advance Publications, Pitchfork, originally a blog that evolved into a more full-fledged online publication, appeared to have some 22 full-time employees at the time of the announcement, according to its masthead.
Pitchfork employees learned of the planned restructuring and the job cuts that reportedly are part of that process during an all-staff meeting meeting late Wednesday, the Washington Post reported, citing an associate staff writer who reportedly said she and others had been laid off.
Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s chief content officer, indicated in a staff memo that Pitchfork editor-in-chief Puja Patel, who previously held the same title at Spin magazine, had departed, according to the entertainment trade publication Variety.
The Hollywood Reporter published the Wintour memo in its entirety.
GQ, formerly known as Gentlemen’s Quarterly, was founded in 1931 and built its reputation as a men’s fashion magazine.
