Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: cbr, Comic Book Resources
“Despite rumors to the contrary, we have not eliminated our News section. We simply fired all the news editors who didn’t resign in protest” – CBR
Valnet states it is “a worldwide digital media publishing company that owns and operates several highly authoritative brands spanning several verticals including: entertainment, technology, automotive, gaming, and aviation. Valnet specializes in acquiring and operating properties that are mission critical in their respective environments.” This includes, amongst many others, Comic Book Resources, the comic book news website started by Jonah Weiland, and where I first properly made a name for myself in comics with the column Lying In The Gutters before founding Bleeding Cool for Avatar Press.
Of late, CBR and other Valnet sites, such as Screenrant, have come under criticism for making redundant both longstanding and short standing staff members, including their EIC, dropping rates, and losing familiar names. In recent days they have lost even more.
At the end of June, former CBR Comics News Editor Brandon Schreur posted, “Officially done as CBR’s comics news editor. There are a MILLION stories that could be told about the past month and V*****, but instead, I’ll just say that @LocalComicSean @julia_wordsmith @tragicomic_miki @emilyrosezombie @IceBearlyCoping @KairosImplicit @josbaxter @Narayan_Liu @NoahDominguez_ @mytherror @PixelGrotto @LD_Nolan are all wonderful people and you’re incredibly lucky if you ever get the chance to work with any of them. I got to work with all of them, so, yeah, what a time it was to be alive.”
Four days ago, former CBR Lead News editor Emily Zogbie posted, “After three years, I have been let go from CBR. I started as a weekend news editor and left as the Lead News Editor. I may have more to say later, I dunno. I obviously have a pre-written statement prepared for this exact scenario lol, but I don’t wanna deal with it rn”
Former CBR Comics News Editor Sean Gribbin posted, “There were 10 News Editors at CBR when the area’s amazing Editor-in-Chief and Senior Editor were laid off in May. Since then, 8 of that original 10 have resigned from their editor roles of their own accord, and the last 2 were laid off today.” and followed by saying, “It sure would’ve been crazy if a business with “comic book” in the name limited the number of comic news stories to about 5 per day.”
Brandon Schreur replied, “Man, that WOULD be crazy. Surely a company as good and smart as Valnet would never do something like that, right?”
Another News Editor going by Mytherror posted, “after 4 years editing and writing for CBR, my position & department were eliminated by parent company Valnet today in their pivot away from news and towards being a content mill they’ve spent months firing people and restructuring, so it wasn’t a huge surprise, but still a blow.”
There was some commentary that this was all because CBR had removed their News section entirely, leading current CBR Managing Editor Jon Arvden to post on August 20th, “No, CBR has not eliminated its news section.” It was in this context that things went further when the following X/tweet was posted from the official CBR X/Twitter account.
Reading “Despite rumors to the contrary, we have not eliminated our News section. We simply fired all the news editors who didn’t resign in protest and have been slowly gutting our other departments as Valnet continues CBR’s shift to an Al-driven, clickbait-focused content mill.”
As you can see, in the very short minute it was up, the tweet did rather well regarding views, reposts, quotes, likes, and the like. In other circumstances, CBR might have been quite pleased with that. But seemingly not this time. Before you knew it, the post was gone as if it had never existed. Thankfully a few hundred people thoughtfully chose to screencap it first, and a good half sent them to Bleeding Cool in case we hadn’t seen it. But we had.
Jon Arvedon responded, “If I was a f-cking clown who suddenly found myself with a lot more free time on my hands, I’d probably do this too. Well played.” Mytherror added, “we all woke having been locked out of every account, so looks like at least one person who’s still left is pissed. nice to know someone there cares about those of us who were fired.”
Bleeding Cool continues to be solely owned by Avatar Press and no one else. It is something I remain incredibly grateful for, and we send sympathies and good wishes to all those affected by these changes.
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