APBnews.com Exhausts Funding Web Site Will Continue to Operate With Volunteers
June 5, 2000
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- The parent company of APBnews.com today announced that it has exhausted funding and is reducing operations while continuing to seek investment financing.
APBnews.com officials said they will continue to update the Web site with crime, justice and safety news, and meet all contractual obligations with syndication partners that include America Online, MSNBC.com, Yahoo and Snap.com.
Company officials said they hold out hope that their funding attempts will be successful.
'Hardest thing I've ever told anyone'
At a companywide meeting this morning, APB Online Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Marshall Davidson announced to the company's approximately 140 employees that funding had been exhausted.
The mood was somber and expectant as Davidson addressed the staff in the middle of the company newsroom in its offices at 65 Broadway, calling it "the hardest thing I've ever told anyone."
"APB Online was in the midst of its third round of financing in March when the market's valuation of Internet companies drastically declined," Davidson said. "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."
Employees received their final checks on Friday, and all have been terminated. But many are continuing their work on a volunteer basis for at least the balance of this week.
"We began APB with a sincere desire to inform and serve our users, and I am proud that we have lived that mission," Davidson said. "We wanted to produce great content, and our users and content partners and the journalism awards say we have done that."
In addition to posting news and distributing it to partners, officials say, APB Online will continue efforts to obtain financial disclosure records from the federal judiciary. APB Online sued the federal judiciary in December to force disclosure.
Started with staff of 14
APBnews.com went online on Nov. 11, 1998, with a staff of about two-dozen employees. By the time money ran out, the newsroom consisted of 55 veteran newspaper and television journalists and more than 130 freelance editors and reporters around the nation, including two Pulitzer Prize winners.
The Web site in that time grew to eight channels and 26 programs, including streaming video and audio.
APBnews.com Radio Waves, which distributes produced audio for radio stations nationwide, will continue to operate along with the rest of the company until the funding situation is resolved, said company officials.
Among the professional awards received by APBnews.com were the first Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for Web Reporting, the first Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Online Journalism Deadline Reporting, and a special citation for body of work in the first online award by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. Brill's Content recently named APBnews.com one of the best news sites on the Internet.