Pacific Standard, a Santa Barbara-based magazine dedicated to covering social and environmental justice, will shut down next Friday, the editor-in-chief Nicholas Jackson announced Wednesday.
The magazine’s staff learned on Wednesday morning, “without any warning,” according to Jackson, that Pacific Standard’s “primary funder” was cutting off all of its donations and that the publication’s board had decided to shut down the magazine by next Friday.
“Today is an extremely difficult day, the worst day — and I’m heart-broken and devastated,” Jackson wrote on Twitter. “I’m feeling all of the emotions about this terrible news. Anger and frustration, certainly — we were repeatedly and enthusiastically told we were over-performing and -delivering up until the very end, and that we had a long-term commitment — shock, sadness and disappointment.”
Launched in 2008, Pacific Standard — originally named Miller-McCune — was created by Sara Miller McCune, the co-founder of SAGE Publishing, and has been published by The Social Justice Foundation, a non-profit founded by McCune that is dedicated to disseminating the latest research about “economic, educational, environmental, and social justice,” according to the organization’s website. (The Social Justice Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.)
The magazine has received several awards, including two National Magazine Awards and the Los Angeles Press Club’s arts and entertainment award for soft news; such award-winning journalism includes a cover story on the harassment that women receive online, a poignant photo essay following a search-and-rescue mission to save refugees from “overloaded, sinking vessels” in the Mediterranean Sea, and a piece looking at the impact of a 1970s magazine cover featuring Wonder Woman.
“Even though we’re leaving, there’s still a pressing need for the kind of work @PacificStand produces–non-partisan, science-informed reporting on social and environmental justice,” Jackson wrote. “I hope some of what we’ve done has touched you, and influenced others who continue where we can’t.”