The relief Mike Reed expressed came, he said, from witnessing Pitchfork stray from his original vision of a curated weekend of independent music, designed for audiences and artists whose tastes don’t fit with more corporate bashes like Lollapalooza and Coachella. - Chicago Sun-Times

New York–based media giant Condé Nast, which owns Pitchfork Media, the longtime online music criticism website, broke the news on Instagram Monday that the festival would no longer take place in Chicago, where it originated 19 years ago. Condé Nast did not explain the decision. - WBEZ

This moment represents a new low for music journalism as a whole. But it’s in times like these that prefigurative visions come more clearly into focus. - Boston Review

Implementing a paywall would have given Pitchfork’s readers an opportunity to support it while liberating its staff from having to conjure money out of thin air. Instead, Condé Nast bought it, failed to set it up for success, then cut it up as soon as it became a burden. - The Walrus

There’s a lot of boutique blogs and a lot of local localized music blogs. But as far as a thing that’s covering music, period, it’s probably like one writer at all the major newspapers and outlets and then a handful of music publications that still exist. - Columbia Journalism Review

Forget the death of newspapers and magazines (that’s old news about old news), we are now in the end of the era of websites and blogs. Young people crowd source their news, information, entertainment, and opinions. - Populism

"It is bleak on so many levels, first and foremost the job losses during a straitened time for media. Pitchfork was one of the last stable music outlets going – where else are the former staff, and the site’s hundreds of freelancers, meant to work now?" - The Guardian (UK)

The move will result in an undetermined number of layoffs at the website, including the loss of Editor-in-Chief Puja Patel. - Daily Beast