Say goodbye to Pitchfork and hello to GQ. Yesterday (Jan. 17), Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s chief content officer and iconic global editorial director of Vogue, announced the audacious music publication is merging under GQ. In a memo to company staff, Wintour describes it as the “best path forward.” This merger will bring major layoffs within Pitchfork, highlighted by the exit of editor-in-chief Puja Patel.
“Today we are evolving our Pitchfork team structure by bringing the team into the GQ organization,” Wintour’s memo read. “This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork’s performance and what we believe is the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company.”
Known for unabashed music criticism, Pitchfork became an omnipresent villainous god to every stan account on Twitter/X. Founded by indie-music fan Ryan Schreiber in 1996, the publication slowly became a beacon in music journalism over the years. Although, Halsey did “threaten” to bomb its headquarters for a scathing review.
“Both Pitchfork and GQ have unique and valuable ways that they approach music journalism, and we are excited for the new possibilities together,” the memo continued. She thanked Patel for “her leadership of the title over the last five years” and enduring advocations as a colleague. Wintour announced the immediate layoffs of some Pitchfork colleagues. However, the remaining members will “hear more about their reporting structure in meetings this week,” according to Wintour’s memo.
In the face of the layoffs, Pitchfork’s features editor, Jill Mapes, had one last bittersweet dig posted to Twitter/X. “I’ve referred to my job at pitchfork as being on a ferris wheel at closing time, just waiting for them to yank me down.” Mapes said, “after nearly 8 yrs, mass layoffs got me. glad we could spend that time trying to make it a less dude-ish place just for GQ to end up at the helm.”
Pitchfork has completed its year-end coverage. Despite this, the staff worked against Condé Nast’s unclear announcement of a “company-wide purge.” Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch announced this purge in November 2023 as a means to cut costs.
