Julia Angwin, a former Wall Street Journal and ProPublica reporter, said she was fired over email on Monday night, less than three months before the site’s planned launch in July. Angwin claims that Sue Gardner, The Markup’s CEO and co-founder, was “seeking to change the mission of the newsroom to one based on advocacy against the tech companies…a ‘cause’ rather than a ‘publication.’” Gardner denied that was true but has not offered further details about Angwin’s departure, citing HR issues. At the time of publication, five reporters out of seven had resigned from The Markup in protest. (New York Times, Nieman Lab)

Talking point: The Markup was announced to much fanfare last year because of the US$20 million grant provided by Craigslist-founder Craig Newmark and the addition of Sue Gardner, former head of the Wikimedia foundation and cbc.ca. The publication said it would do investigative reporting on big tech- most notably on the algorithms behind the platforms. Angwin’s departure is a blow to the startup. Her investigative reporting at ProPublica revealed discrimation on Facebook’s advertising platform and her work inspired journalists, including our own Catherine McIntyre, to follow suit. Gardner was rumored to be in the running for the President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation last year. Last September, she delivered the LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture for the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. Meanwhile, in somewhat related news, Warren Buffett told Yahoo Finance that most newspapers are “toast” because of the decline in advertising revenues. Buffett credited Craigslist for sealing that fate.