DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionizebr DNAinfo’s chief operating officer sent the staff an email wondering if a union might be “the final strawbr that caused the business to close.” Around the same time, Mr. Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, wrote, “As long as it’s my money that’s paying for everything, I intend to be the one making the decisions about the direction of the business.”br In September, Mr. Ricketts, a conservative who supported President Trump in last year’s election, raised the ante with a post on his blog titled “Why I’m Against Unions At Businesses I Create,” in which he arguedbr that “unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.”br But reporters at many digital news sites make only a fraction of what staffers made in the heyday of print newspapers.br Mr. Ricketts wrote that he founded DNAinfo in 2009 “because I believe people care deeply about the thingsbr that happen where they live and work,” and he thought he could build “a large and loyal audience that advertisers would want to reach.” DNAinfo and Gothamist, which Mr. Ricketts bought in the spring, attracted more than 9 million readers a month, in New York and other cities where they operate satellite sites, DNAinfo said.br Emma Whitford, a Gothamist reporter, said that organizers from the union assured the workersbr that threats to shut the sites down were just “textbook union-busting tactics.”br The union said in a statement: “It is no secret that threats were made to these workers during the organizing drive.br Ben Fractenberg, who joined DNAinfo in 2010, said that the hope wasbr that as local newspapers around the country foundered, DNAinfo would create “a new business model” for local news.br A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfobr and Gothamist, two of New York City’s leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union.