The Messenger to Close After Less Than a Year

The Messenger, a news website that pledged to shake up the media industry with a playbook borrowed from the doomed publishing start-ups of yesteryear, will be closing down.

In an email to staff, the site’s founder, Jimmy Finkelstein, said that The Messenger’s shutdown was “effective immediately.”

“This is truly the last thing I wanted, and I am deeply sorry,” Mr. Finkelstein wrote.

By closing less than a year after it launched, The Messenger will now be one of the biggest busts in the annals of online news. And its collapse is the most substantial blow in recent months to the news industry, which is reeling from an unrelenting series of cutbacks.

The organization hired about 300 people, including journalists with experience at such publications as Politico, Reuters, NBC News and The Associated Press, who joined the company in the hopes that it would deliver on its promise to introduce an important new nonpartisan voice to the American news landscape.