Pensburgh to curtail publishing today in support of SB Nation’s California sites and contributors

On Monday, December 23, Pensburgh will not be publishing any articles. A number of SB Nation’s NHL sites will also be posting a limited amount of content, or no content at all.

This is a reaction to a decision made last week by Vox Media management regarding the future of SB Nation’s sites devoted to covering teams in the state of California. You can read the announcement that was posted last Monday on the situation.

This decision will fundamentally affect three of our fellow NHL communities — Anaheim Ducks blog Anaheim Calling, Fear The Fin which covers the San Jose Sharks, and Los Angeles Kings site Jewels From The Crown. Any writers based in California who write for other sites will also be affected by the decision.

The California law that prompted this decision (which you can read more about in the article linked above) was enacted on September 18, yet the affected writers had no warning that their contracts with Vox Media were at risk until the above article revealed that the contracts were being terminated — nearly three months later. Cutting loose the entire writing staffs of 25 SB Nation team sites was a complete surprise to everyone impacted, with no prior warning and minimal contact from SB Nation management before the announcement was made public.

Not publishing any content on Monday, December 23 is our way of showing our dissatisfaction with how the situation was handled by SB Nation. Our message is that not only should they have done a better job of communicating their plans for those content creators based in California, but that they will need to have better communication on any such wide-reaching decision made in the future.

We will return on Tuesday, December 24 with the usual coverage, analysis, and opinion that you’ve come to expect from Pensburgh over the past decade, and from all the hockey sites on the network. We appreciate your understanding regarding the action being taken today.