The Calls Come From Inside the House

Gordy Megroz, contributing editor for Outside joins others in an open letter to CEO Robin Thurston, and shared on LinkedIn:

Dear Mr. Thurston,

We are writing to express our dismay at the layoffs of Outside’s longtime editorial leadership and budget cuts that place an undue strain on the hardworking staff that remain. We are equally alarmed by directives from the company’s leadership asking editors to refrain from investigative journalism and political coverage.

Despite the vast sums of money you have raised to consolidate the adventure media industry, your company now seems intent on destroying what Outside once stood for: bold, spirited journalism. We are not on board for that. Effective immediately, please remove our names from Outside’s masthead.

We have a deep regard for Outside’s almost fifty-year tradition of ambitious storytelling, which was created by hundreds of dedicated journalists. Evolution is necessary; dispensing with journalistic rigor is not. We urge you to return to the values that made Outside successful, and that it must embrace to navigate an uncertain future.

I’ve been bold and outspoken about the failed leadership at Outside for a while now, but this clearly comes from someone with inside knowledge, and makes it all the more painful. If it is really that bad, then I was correct all along in my observations, but more so, it’s clear that Outside is over, gone and done. Pour one out for yet another beloved community brand destroyed by an overconfident tech guy. We see a lot of this lately, don’t we?