• by Melynda Fuller , September 7, 2018

Following the publication of the Sept. 6 column  "Freelancers Boycott 'The Outline' After it Lays Off Entire Writing Staff,"The Outline reached out to Publishers Insider to respond.

"We’d originally intended to keep our heads down and focus on our work here at The Outline, but there has been some erroneous speculation on Twitter and elsewhere about what’s been happening with us, so below are some facts to help clear things up:

"We recently made the hard decision to let go of some very talented people, so we could move the business into a break-even financial position as quickly as possible, thus allowing us to grow, hire and build independent of venture capital investment — a goal from day one for our company.

"We had to let go of two staff writers and four non-editorial employees — the remaining team is 16 full timers, including six editors, all of whom write and edit.

"We will keep on working with freelancers. (As we always have — they continue to make up the majority of our output.) We plan on hiring more writers and editors and growing the rest of the team when the business realities will allow it. There is no malice here. We are simply trying to build a different kind of business and dealing with challenges many media companies (both large and small) must deal with. 

"There are people who have spent the last 48 hours attacking the work we’ve done and the business we’ve built and the people who remain at the business — editorial, developers, revenue — as if they are an enemy and don’t deserve to keep their jobs. Those attacking us are misguided and ill-informed. We are not a monolithic corporation. We are not executives in corner offices hoarding money. We're journalists trying to make something good, and making hard choices to keep a business alive so we can fight another day."