Leading LGBTQ+ publisher Pink News says it is considering legal action against a “whistleblower” Twitter account devoted to publishing criticism of the way the brand is run.
The account, Pink News Whistleblowers, has garnered thousands of retweets and more than 6,000 followers for posts which have included leaked recordings from what appear to be high-level company meetings. Last week the account disappeared from Twitter.
Lawyers acting for the business have advised Press Gazette that the account “is the subject of potential litigation” and cautioned that “any reliance” on the account’s posts “would involve a degree of legal jeopardy”.
However, Press Gazette’s own research suggests several former staffers sympathise with the concerns raised by Pink News Whistleblower account.
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Press Gazette has been unable to verify the identity of the person or people running the Pink News Whistleblower account itself, but we have spoken to 12 verified current and former staffers of the brand.
Most of the sources said working at Pink News left them feeling stressed, anxious and overworked.
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“If I knew who it was I would shake their hand,” said one former employee, saying the account had “given a lot of colleagues the courage to speak up”. Like almost all the people Press Gazette interviewed, the person agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity.
Another former employee said: “When I heard some of the stories coming out it opened that box again for me, and I thought: ‘God, that was a really awful time, wasn’t it?”
‘This was beyond the pale’
The people Press Gazette spoke with worked at Pink News for a variety of periods across the past decade. We were referred to several of them by the Pink News Whistleblower account itself, but approached or were approached by other sources directly. Most held editorial roles, with a handful having been commercial staff.
One former employee said. “It was the most damaging place for me, mentally, that I’ve been.
“I’ve been in multiple workplaces, I’ve been in multiple newsrooms. This was beyond the pale. We were constantly on edge.”
They said: “When you’re doing something which feels good for the world, like writing about queer issues… you’re willing to put up with online hostility. Usually that comes from comments on social media – hatred from politicians as well, God.” But they said they felt unsupported within the company as well.
“It is hard to speak out, partly because it’s easy to be like: ‘Well, that’s just being a journalist.’ You’re not treated well all the time, necessarily. It’s easy to make excuses for people and to wonder if you’re just not tough enough to be in the industry.”
A second former staffer made similar comments, saying their well-being while at the company had been “not good” due to the way they felt they were treated.
They added: “A lot of it was brushed aside for a long period of time – people saying that’s newsroom culture. But actually, on so many levels, it went beyond that.”
And they said: “Every employer I’ve worked for since, I have not had similar problems anywhere. And as much as newsroom culture can be a changeable thing, I’ve never experienced what I experienced at Pink News anywhere else.”
A third former employee said “there was so much hostility at work”, saying they had been shouted at in the office.
A fourth described their wellbeing while working at the company as “utterly abysmal”. A fifth said: “There would always be shouting in the office.”
Pink News began as a side hustle for then Channel 4 News technology correspondent Ben Cohen in 2005. Today it is one of the biggest news sources in the world for LBGTQ+ issues. In 2021 it boasted an annual profit of £2m, but the following year it saw a sharp drop advertising revenue derived via social media. As of 2023 Pink News employed 76 staff, but nine roles were put at risk of redundancy at the start of this year.
The most recent accounts, for the year to 31 December 2022, reported profit before tax of £1.5m for Pink News on turnover of £5.5m. That revenue figure was revised down from an earlier number, £10.3m, that was provided to The Sunday Times. The company told Press Gazette previously that the revision reflected a change in the way the company reported income from its revenue-sharing arrangements with third-party platforms.
‘Knocked my confidence’
Adam Bloodworth, who is now deputy life and style editor at City AM, spent approximately six weeks at Pink News as a features editor and was the one former staffer willing to speak to Press Gazette under his own name.
Bloodworth, who came out to his parents in part because he had taken a role at Pink News, said he was given “a hugely challenging task load to complete… I think I had to commission 80 features a month from the get-go”.
He hit that target, he said, but was then laid off for after being told he had failed to hit search engine optimisation goals. Bloodworth described the meeting where he was laid off as “heated”.
The episode “knocked my confidence professionally,” Bloodworth said. “It was a defining moment in my life, really… I still haven’t really processed it.”
One person who has worked at Pink News described “late-night emails and messages” and “a constant pressure to make more and more money”.
Another editorial employee, already quoted above, said they felt: “There were extreme expectations of how much we were meant to produce in a day.”
But it should be noted that current editorial output on Pink News appears to be within UK news industry norms.
In the week commencing 19 August the site published 89 stories authored by 11 named writers, as well as another 17 credited to a generic “Pink News Reporter” byline. Both the mean and median number of stories produced by each reporter over the week was approximately nine, with the most prolific author publishing 18.
‘Consistent problems over nearly a decade’
One former staffer said they were glad when the Pink News Whistleblowers Twitter account appeared.
“I have talked to former Pink News people over many years about crap like this, and nothing is ever really done. So I’m pleased, I’m keen to help them.”
Another said: “Sure, every company has a few disgruntled employees… I don’t believe this is one or two disgruntled employees. This is consistent problems over nearly a decade.”
Another said: “Employees talk. All of us talk to each other. It’s not just one person in this isolated event saying that this happened to them. They have friends and colleagues who are going to be willing to stand behind them and say: ‘No, this happened.’
“People have been sending audio recordings, people have been sending screenshots – how are Pink News going to take legal action and expect to come out on top?”
Asked why it launched its campaign, a source at the Pink News Whistleblowers account said they did not feel Pink News was advocating sufficiently well for “important LGBTQ+ issues, especially the trans community”.
“Recent redundancies of dedicated staff members was the final straw, proving that the company’s senior management prioritises profit over supporting the LGBTQ+ community that has been the backbone of Pink News since its humble beginnings in a small office in North London.”
Not all former staffers agree with Pink News Whistleblower criticism
Not every person Press Gazette asked spoke in favour of the account or its characterisation of either working at Pink News or its output. One independent Pink News source told Press Gazette the testimonies promoted on Twitter had “genuinely not been my experience with either the senior leadership or Ben and Anthony themselves”. Cohen is the CEO of Pink News and his husband Anthony James is the chief operating officer.
The person was critical of the account’s decision to release an audio clip in which Cohen is apparently heard discussing how Pink News should approach campaigning for trans rights.
This person said the clip had been “posted out of context… which in turn saw the Pink News accounts being abused.
“You’d think from our output it would be clear that Pink News isn’t transphobic, that we continue to post trans-focused content on a very regular basis. And the majority of our creative teams are LGBTQ+ people, so the backlash has had quite a negative effect on them.”
In the week preceding the audio’s release the site published 17 articles about trans or nonbinary people or issues, by Press Gazette’s count, accounting for approximately 12% of output and an average of a little over three stories a day.
Those stories included both more traditional hard news about, for example, the deaths and killings of trans women or allegations that a dating app discriminates against trans people, and also several celebrity-based news stories, for example “Queer Eye’s Jonathan van Ness on developing an anal fistula: ‘I grew a second butthole’”.
‘There are and always have been very dedicated journalists who care significantly about LGBT issues’
A recurring theme throughout the conversations with former staff was admiration for the dedication of many staff working at the brand.
One person said: “There are and always have been very dedicated journalists who care significantly about LGBT issues and will do their utmost to make sure that the coverage does what it should in terms of reporting for the LGBT community, no matter what pressures are put upon them.”
Another said: “The general sentiment for a lot of us former employees is that the people that we worked with on a day-to-day basis were so passionate, so talented, really wanting to make a change.”
Pink News: ‘Staff morale impacted by seven-day working and redundancies’
Press Gazette asked Pink News if it would like to respond to both some of the criticisms raised by the Pink News Whistlelower account and by former staff.
Pink News sent the following statement via lawyers WP Tweed and Co:
“As a preliminary point, we note that as of 29 August 2024, the account in question appears to have been deleted. This further underlines the unreliability of the ccount and the allegations it posted.
“We confirm that we are continuing to provide our client advice in relation to potential action against the ccount and it would therefore be inappropriate for us to elaborate further on this point.
“We reiterate that the information it published, including the audio clips, was distorted and stripped of context to present an inaccurate reflection of our client’s business practice and core values.
“Our client is disappointed to hear that current and former employees have reportedly expressed having experienced workplace difficulties. There are many other current and former employees with positive experiences and our client instructs that they are aware that you have contacted some of these individuals.
“Given the nature of these anonymous and generalised complaints, our client is unable to respond to them properly.
“Our client is aware that staff morale was impacted by two key commercial decisions; the reintroduction of 7-day shift patterns, which are common across the news and media industry, and recent redundancies which have been a major part of Press Gazette’s industry coverage this year.
“Pink News is committed to fostering a positive, supportive and enjoyable workplace where employees’ physical and mental health needs are supported.
“While we note your assertion that individuals you have spoken to expressed support for the account’s description of an unhealthy or unpleasant work environment, this should not be conflated with the account’s severe and unfounded allegations…”
The statement said that some of the content on the Pink News Whistleblowers account was “grossly defamatory” and the law firm said “they are currently considering their position in this regard”.
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