• The not-so-great Gatsby

    Gatsby publishing, the company behind the now defunct US magazine The New York Dog and equally defunct Irish gossip site Blogorrah is in some serious financial trouble; although the exact reasons for this are still up for debate.

    Dig & Scratch today posted a long report detailing accusations made by alleged former employees directed at Gatsby owner John Ryan. In the post he is accused of having no business acumen, of owing staff huge sums in back-pay and of putting his own fashion needs above the company and its staff’s survival.

    Ryan, on the other hand, says that the business collapsed because advertisers weren’t paying up and he wasn’t prepared for the job that issue created, due to his more modest routes in Irish publishing.

    One thing to keep in mind is that Dig & Scratch certainly wouldn’t be too cut up at the news of its rival’s downfall; indeed it seems as though it has gone out of its way to bring today’s news to certain sections of the Irish blogosphere. As such everything it says on the matter must be read with skeptical eyes.

    But while the exact reasons for the magazine’s collapse remain uncertain one thing can be stated with no doubt – Gatsby is in serious trouble and its prospects of survival are not looking too good at the moment.

    All the financial trouble at The New York Dog certainly puts the silence on Blogorrah into perspective, doesn’t it?

    (73man, who doesn’t know his right from his left, was ahead of the pack with this story and has even elicited a response from someone claiming to be John Ryan… and someone who doesn’t seem to like John Ryan very much.)