Richard Beckman, the hard-charging president of the news site The Messenger, is resigning.
He announced his departure on LinkedIn, saying Jan. 31 would be his last day.
Beckman, who earned the nickname “Mad Dog” for his take-no-prisoners style at Condé Nast, said he was stepping down at The Messenger because of health problems, adding that he had informed owner Jimmy Finkelstein of the pending decision back in November. He said he would be retiring from the corporate world as well.
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A representative for The Messenger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I will be helping with the transition this next few weeks then watching and cheering from the sidelines as my colleagues continue to pursue, with great passion, their noble mission to bring balance back to the newsroom and of course remain an investor in The Messenger,” he wrote in his LinkedIn message.
Beckman also referenced his time working with Finkelstein at The Hill, which Finkelstein sold for $130 million to Nexstar in 2021.
“It has been a wonderful journey for me since I arrived from England back in 1984 enjoying 24 incredible years at Condé Nast then time at Prometheus, Vice, Three Lions and prior to this past year at The Messenger, 5 very fulfilling years at The Hill with Jimmy,” Beckman wrote.
“Along the way I have had the great pleasure to meet and work alongside some of the most talented people in the industry and been exposed to unique experiences and opportunities I would have never thought possible as I embarked on this journey from my beginnings in North London… for those of you that have shared this journey with me… thank you it has been a great privilege,” he added.
“Thank you for joining me on this wonderful journey and please do stay in touch,” Beckman concluded.
Beckman’s announcement comes as the site prepares to layoff dozens of employees in the new year. While the site launched with 150 journalists on staff with promises to soon boost that number to 550, Confider reported last month that management headed into the Christmas season looking to implement a “strategic realignment” of its staff.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the company will terminate about two dozen staffers in an effort to cut costs as The Messenger faces a cash crunch.
Throughout his brief tenure leading The Messenger, which launched last spring, Beckman was known for his pie-in-the-sky predictions of massive traffic and revenue, wildly claiming the startup news outlet would soon achieve $100 million in yearly revenue and tens of millions of monthly readers.
The honeymoon for the supposedly nonpartisan and centrist news site would soon be over, however. Journalists and editors soon began fleeing the fledgling outlet just days after its launch, complaining about the direction of The Messenger and its apparent embrace of “aggregated content and clickbait” journalism to generate programmatic ad revenue.
Just a few months after the site went live, two key business executives quit the troubled startup amid clashes with Beckman. “Beckman is at the center of the problems—the two women left because of him. More are looking to leave,” one Messenger insider told Confider at the time.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Beckman—who had publicly boasted that The Messenger was going to be swimming in cash amid booming traffic—lamented that the site’s finances were struggling. Sources told Confider in October that Beckman was privately telling employees that the site was “out of money.”
Beckman sounding the alarm about The Messenger’s financial well-being this past fall also came at a time that the site’s employees were begging for an all-hands meeting with management to address the growing concerns internally that the outlet could be in trouble. At the same time, more and more staffers began pushing to unionize the newsroom.
